Associated Press + ICT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Communities in areas along a 700-mile stretch of Alaska’s southern coast ordered residents to higher ground after a powerful earthquake Wednesday, but officials quickly downgraded a tsunami warning for the region. There were no immediate reports of significant damage.
The earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, struck at 12:37 p.m. local time south of Sand Point, a community of about 1,000 people on Popof Island, in the Aleutian chain, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. The first waves were projected to land there, but the state’s emergency management division said an hour after the quake that it had received no reports of damage.
“We have seen other earthquakes in the area that have not generated significant tsunami waves, but we’re treating it seriously and going through our procedures, making sure communities are notified so they can activate their evacuation procedures,” division spokesperson Jeremy Zidek said.
The quake was felt as far away as Anchorage, almost 600 miles to the northeast.
The National Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for an area stretching from about 40 miles southwest of Homer to Unimak Pass, a distance of about 700 miles. Among the larger communities in the area is Kodiak, with a population of about 5,200. The warning was downgraded to an advisory about an hour later, and canceled just before 2:45 p.m.
Several tribes have homelands in southwest Alaska, including the Alutiiq, Aleut and Dena’ina Athabaskan.
“Items fell off of shelves and cabinet doors opened,” Sand Point Police Chief Benjamin Allen told ICT. Along the shoreline, “The water receded a little bit, but not anything drastic.” Still, that was enough for officials to order residents to evacuate to higher ground at Sand Point School.
The quake struck at about 12:37 p.m. Alaska time at a depth of 12 miles, some 55 miles south of Sand Point, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tsunami sirens sounded in Sand Point, Cold Bay and Kodiak Island.
No significant waves were reported – a tsunami buoy measured a water rise of 3 inches – and the National Weather Service downgraded its tsunami warning to an advisory. The advisory was lifted at 2:42 p.m., Allen said, and residents were cleared to return to their homes.
In Unalaska, a fishing community of about 4,100, officials urged people in possible inundation zones to move at least 50 feet above sea level or 1 mile inland. In King Cove, which has about 870 residents on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, officials sent an alert calling on those in the coastal area to move to higher ground.
The National Weather Service said in posts on social media that there was no tsunami threat for other U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America, including Washington, Oregon and California.
Alaska’s southern coast is earthquake-prone, and Wednesday’s was the fifth in roughly the same area since 2020 exceeding magnitude 7, state seismologist Michael West said.
“Something’s moving in this area,” he said. “I would not call this an isolated earthquake. It appears to be part of a larger sequence spanning the last several years.”
That has the attention of seismologists, he said.
“This area has been and remains capable of larger earthquakes and earthquakes capable of significant tsunami damage,” he said.
Cold Bay was struck by a tsunami on April 1, 1946, that resulted from an 8.6 magnitude quake. At least 165 people were killed. One hundred-thirty-nine people in Valdez were killed in a tsunami on March 27, 1964, that resulted from a magnitude 9.2 earthquake. Some 117 people were injured and roads were damaged on Nov. 30, 2018, when a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck north of Anchorage.
Richard Arlin Walker, who writes frequently for ICT, contributed to this report.