Alaska Earthquake: Anchorage Videos Show Aftermath of 7.0 Magnitude Quake
The damage is mounting, but the tsunami warming has been officially cancelled.
On Friday at 8:29 a.m. local time, a massive earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 struck eight miles north of Anchorage, Alaska, violently shaking residents awake. According to the United States Geological Survey, the earthquake was a result of “normal faulting” and occurred at about a depth of 25 miles. Normal as might have been, this earthquake rocked the Alaskan city, as videos from locals suggest.
Shortly after the earthquake, Anchorage resident and Twitter user @sid_lynnnn uploaded the video above, showing the local Anchorage Snapchat story. The scenes showed power outages, broken roads, traffic jams, collapsing shelves, and continuing aftershocks.
Immediately following the earthquake, the US National Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning as a result of the quake, but it has since been cancelled. Amid some confusion due to conflicting reports from NOAA, the National Weather Service Anchorage tweeted: “Please note there is NO Tsunami danger with this earthquake.”
So far, there have not been any injuries reported, but as local news agency KTUU reports, there have been several reports of possible damage to highways and roads as well as landslides. The first few seconds of the video above appears to show a severely damaged road.
According to the USGS, earthquakes are common in the Anchorage region, with 14 other earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater occurring in the past century. On March 27, 1964, one event known as the “Great Alaska Earthquake” (and tsunami) struck near the Prince William Sound region of Alaska, lasting approximately 4.5 minutes, making it the most powerful recorded earthquake ever recorded in US history.
Former Alaska Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin also posted on Twitter Friday that after the quake, her family was intact but her house was not:
