After a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Anchorage on November 30 followed by some aftershocks, a tsunami warning has been issued by the Tsunami Warning Center for the entire Cook inlet.
According to a report by Mirror Online, flights that were approaching the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport have been held in the air. Per the report, the water mains at the airport’s building have been broken.
The quake struck at around 9:30 a.m. local time and because of the high magnitude, one resident is reported to have said that it felt like their house was “going to come apart.”
The tsunami warning has been issued for all of Cook Inlet and southern Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, the report said.
Shortly after the quake struck, Anchorage’s National Weather Service (NWS) took to their Twitter and said that there was “NO Tsunami danger with this earthquake,” but following aftershocks, a warning was declared.
According to a report by CBS News, the U.S. Geological Survey initially said that the magnitude of the earthquake was 6.7 on the Richter scale. However, they later reduced that to 6.6. NWS Anchorage, however, said on their Twitter account that the magnitude of the earthquake was 7.0.
An Associated Press (AP) report said that when the quake struck, it caused panic and people started running from their offices, while others took cover under their desks. Per the same report, “cracks could be seen in a two-story downtown Anchorage building.”
On social media, people who experienced the quake shared some dramatic pictures which showed shelves and furniture overturned in shops and houses as well as collapsed ceiling tiles.
“There was just a MONSTER earthquake in Anchorage. I was getting coffee in a store at the time,” one person wrote on Twitter, adding a picture of the shop which shows items on the floor that had fallen off the shelves during the quake.
Another user shared a video from a restaurant which captured the aftershock. The video shows lamps still swinging with food items and cutlery scattered on the floor.
According to the Mirror report, it hasn’t been cleared yet if there were any injuries. The epicenter of the earthquake is said to be about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Alaska’s largest city of Anchorage.
“This earthquake was felt in Fairbanks, Alaska, 360+ miles from Anchorage,” one Twitter user said.
Per the AP report, on average, Alaska experiences 40,000 earthquakes per year, “with more large quakes than the 49 other states combined.” The report also added that southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes because of the presence of tectonic plates sliding past each other under the region.
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