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Howling sirens prompted U.S. residents to search for higher ground in communities along Alaska’s southern coast after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake that shook buildings triggered a tsunami watch.
The earthquake had its epicenter near Sand Point, a city of about 900 people off the Alaska Peninsula, where the wave level reached 60 centimeters, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center. The warning was downgraded to a warning just over two hours after the earthquake.
Patrick Mayer, superintendent of the Aleutians East Borough School District, said parents picked up the children from Sand Point School, which also served as an evacuation point. He said a school bus was also sent to a fish processing facility to take workers to school.
earthquake.usgs.gov
The Alaska Earthquake Center said the magnitude 7.5 earthquake was widely felt in communities along the southern coast of the United States.
“We are on very high ground,” he said. Mayer was unaware of any structural damage and said officials planned to reopen the school normally on Tuesday.
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The earthquake occurred in the North Pacific Ocean shortly before 1 p.m. and had its epicenter about 118 kilometers southeast of Sand Point, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. The community is about 1,288 km southwest of Anchorage. The earthquake was recorded at a depth of 30 km.
The National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said the tsunami warning was in effect for approximately 1,529 km from 40 miles southeast of Homer to Unimak Pass, about 129 km northeast of Unalaska.
The earthquake was widely felt in communities along the southern coast, including Sand Point, Chignik, Unalaska and the Kenai Peninsula, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center, which said a 5.2 magnitude aftershock was reported 11 minutes later, centered in roughly the same area.
Sand Point School, with 130 students, is the only school in the community, Mayer said, but said the other four schools in the district felt the earthquake to varying degrees. The closest school is 90 miles away, he said.
Some schools in the Kenai Peninsula Township School District were being evacuated to higher ground, the district said on Twitter.
Public safety officials in King Cove sent out an alert urging coastal area residents to move inland to higher ground.
The size of the earthquake was originally reported to be a magnitude 7.4, but has been revised to 7.5, said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey. He said that an earthquake of this size, in this area, is not a surprise.
“This is an area where the Pacific plate is subducting below the North American plate. And because of that, the Pacific Plate actually goes under the North American Plate, where it melts, ”Caruso said, noting that this is why there are volcanoes in the region. “So we commonly have large magnitude 7 earthquakes in that area.”
Unalaska officials sent a message saying the city is outside the warning zone and they are not ordering evacuations at this time. Unalaska public safety officials had issued a statement on Monday saying they would test the community’s tsunami warning sirens.
“He was a good shaker here,” said David Adams, co-director of Marine View Bed and Breakfast in Sand Point. “ We are fine. ” He said all the guests were accounted for and that “ the structure itself is solid. ”
“ You could see the water shaking and shimmering during the earthquake, ” he said. “Our truck was rocking big.” He did not take any photos or video: “It just happened suddenly.”
Rita Tungul, a reception assistant at the Grand Aleutian Hotel in Unalaska, said she felt a shaking but it was not strong. His coworker didn’t feel the shaking at all, he said.
Connie Newton, owner of the Bearfoot Inn, a grocery store, liquor store and small hotel in Cold Bay, said the shaking felt as if someone had entered her building with a truck. Still, nothing fell to the ground and she suffered no damage because she protected her stores against earthquakes by installing 5cm risers around the outside of her shelves.
