https://www.theepochtimes.com/...XbaLbxt%2BNbNVnUI%3D

The quake struck about 50 miles south of Sand Point on the Alaska Peninsula.

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of southern Alaska on Wednesday afternoon, prompting federal officials to issue a tsunami warning.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) map shows that the quake struck in the Gulf of Alaska just miles south of a sparsely populated section of the Alaska Peninsula, roughly 54 miles south of the city of Sand Point, Alaska.

Sand Point is on Popof Island, right off the coast of the Alaska Peninsula, sometimes called the Aleutian Peninsula. The area is around 600 miles south-southwest of Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning after the earthquake struck. The warning areas include much of the Alaska Peninsula, parts of the Aleutian Islands, and other areas around the Gulf of Alaska.
Specifically, the Tsunami Center said the warning was in effect 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 5,200.

The Homer Police Department issued a post on its Facebook account that residents from the Kennedy Entrance, which is the waterway between Kodiak Island and the Kenai Peninsula, to Unimak Pass should flee to higher ground.

Officials in Anchorage sent an alert through its social media page that indicated there was no immediate danger posed to the city by the earthquake or tsunami.
In Unalaska, a fishing community of about 4,100, officials also urged people to move at least 50 feet above sea level, 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 Washington state Emergency Management Division said on X that it was still examining exactly what the tsunami warning means for Washington state coastlines and that it was in contact with the National Tsunami Warning Center.

According to the USGS report, the earthquake struck at roughly 12:37 p.m. local time and has a depth of around 12 miles. People reported feeling the earthquake around the Alaska Peninsula, USGS data show.
The earthquake was first reported as a magnitude 7.2, but it was then upgraded to 7.3 by the USGS.

Earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.0 to 7.9 are considered “major earthquakes,” according to Michigan Technological University’s website. It says that roughly 10 to 15 such earthquakes occur each year.

A “great earthquake,” a more rare phenomenon, has a magnitude of 8.0 or greater, according to the university, and one occurs every one to two years on average.

The entire Pacific Coast of North America, including Alaska and the West Coast of the contiguous United States, are located on the “Ring of Fire,” a tectonic belt that spans most of the Pacific Ocean. The region contains most of the world’s volcanoes and records 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes, the USGS says.
Alaska, meanwhile, has had its share of devastating earthquakes over the years. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck near Anchorage in November 2018, leaving more than 100 injured, and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage.

Notably, a 9.2-9.3 magnitude quake struck near Anchorage, killing about 130 people, in 1964. The quake is considered the second-most powerful earthquake to ever hit in the world and the strongest ever recorded in North American history.
In December 2024, a series of moderate to strong earthquakes that struck Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands and offshore areas comprised what scientists call a swarm. Nine quakes measuring at least magnitude 5.0 struck on or near the islands and in a cluster offshore to the south on Dec. 8, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center in a report at the time.

As a former Alaska resident, a few points are necessary:

Tsunami threat has already been cancelled . It was issued off a 0.2 ft wave. Fairly common for coastal M5.0 and greater earthquakes to have an immediate tsunami alert that is soon cancelled.

Alaska is 2.2 times the size of Texas. An earthquake in the Aleutian Islands is a long way from anything. My grandmother in the Midwest used to call me about Aleutian Islands even though I lived in Anhorage, and I'd tell her it's as close to her home in Indiana as an natural disaster in New Jersey.

The Richter scale is logarithmic so today's earthquake is 100x smaller and 1000x less energy release than the Great Alaskan Earthquake in '64 that the author mentioned. That one was a true regional monster with tsunami wiping out Seward, tsunami damage in Whittier, a city near Portage sunk 8' and disappeared into the Cook Inlet, part of Anchorage fell into the Cook Inlet, ANC's airport out of commission, and Anchorage's port out of commission.

We got alerts on our phones. Of course, they never issue the cancellations on our phones in the same way.

Most Alaskans ignore these warnings....because they happen every few weeks.

Shame. If anything real ever happens, I believe most Alaskans will ignore the warnings.

For the like 30 people that live in Sand Point, it might have been a thing... but it wasn't.

This is what the warning looked like:

USGS worldwide earthquake map:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ea....16802&settings=true

quote:

USGS worldwide earthquake map

Fascinating. You broaden that out to 30 days 4.5 or greater and it is a LOT of instances. I don't want to live on one of those red line thingies....