Alaska Earthquake 2009: Strong Earthquake Shakes Southern Alaska

Southern Alaska was hit with a 5.7 magnitude earthquake Saturday, reports the US Geological Survey. Read more on the Alaska earthquake 2009 below.

Alaska’s earthquake’s epicenter was located 56 kilometers (35 miles) west of the town of Nanwalek, and about 259 km (161 miles) southwest of Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, the USGS said in a statement.

The USGS initially measured the earthquake at magnitude 6.1, then revised it to 5.7.

Thus far, there are no reports of casualties or destruction. The quake occurred at a depth of 100 kilometers (62 miles), said the USGS.

A massive earthquake of magnitude 9.2 struck Alaska on March 27, 1964, the second most powerful quake ever recorded. The epicenter was in Prince William Sound, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Anchorage.

That quake triggered a tsunami wave that struck along the US Pacific coast. Only 131 people were killed, largely because the quake occurred on a holiday weekend.

Over the last 100 years an average of one earthquake of magnitude 7 has occurred in Alaska every year, according to the USGS.

From the Anchorage Daily News:

The earthquake struck Southcentral Alaska at 9:09 a.m. near the mouth of Cook Inlet, about 50 miles southwest of Homer and about 62 miles deep, according to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center.

When she unlocked the door to the Ptarmigan Arts Co-Op in the heart of Homer that morning, local artist Genny Lyda braced for the worst, expecting to find shattered glass sculptures and clay pottery lying on the floor.

But the only casualty was a wire sculpture of a tree, by Homer artist Stephen Pernelli, which tumbled off its pedestal.

“He just came in, and I was like, ‘You’re the winner! You had something fall — and it wasn’t even breakable!’ ” Lyda said.

Paintings in the gallery were twisted on their hangers, but she happily set them right.

“We have an enormous amount of glass (art) from Seascape Gallery and I thought for sure we’d have some breakage there, but none of their stuff broke.”

Out East End Road, sculpture artist Paul Dungan and his family rushed out of their home five miles east of Homer when the walls began shaking.

“It was like, ‘Whoa! This one’s going,’ ” Dungan said by telephone, walking toward his pottery studio in an outbuilding to check the stacks of clay pieces sitting on high shelves.

Opening the door, he was first relieved to see five large sculptures still standing upright — then let out a gasp.

“Whoa, very close! Wow!” Dungan said. “I have platters standing in little stands upright on a shelf and one of them is like a quarter inch from the edge … it must have walked three or four inches. So I was really lucky — because that also would have fallen on a really nice piece. “

Back in town, boxes and toiletries did fall off the shelves at the Safeway grocery store in the center of Homer, according to store assistant manager Mel Cook said. But there wasn’t any significant damage.

In Kodiak, about 100 miles south of the epicenter, Deb Darminio reported that the quake had seemed to roll through her house in a straight line, entering from the north and exiting to the south.

“I could tell what direction it came from,” Darminio noted by e-mail. “Before I knew where it was centered, I guessed northwest of me.”

Far to the north, in Denali Park, Clayton and Erika Flagg said they noticed a distinct “bump” from the quake, about 350 miles away.

The quake wasn’t strong enough to generate a tsunami wave, according to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.

For a while soon after the quake, the U.S. Geological Survey reported a preliminary magnitude of 6.1, but the agency later revised its magnitude to 5.7. It was preceded by 16 smaller earthquakes that rattled across Alaska early Saturday morning, the earthquake center reported.

The largest of those was a magnitude-3.2 earthquake that shook the Kodiak Island region at 3:18 a.m.

We will keep you posted on the latest on Alaska’s earthquake.

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Posted by: Monya

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