A strong 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off Alaska\u2019s coast Wednesday at 12:38 p.m. local time, prompting a tsunami warning and mass evacuations. The quake\u2019s epicenter was near the Shumagin Islands, southeast of Sand Point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sirens and phone alerts urged residents from Homer to Unimak Pass to move to higher ground. \u201cThere was a lot of traffic as folks got out of low-lying areas,\u201d said Homer\u2019s mayor, Rachel Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities warned that coastal areas, including the eastern Aleutians, the Alaska Peninsula, and Kodiak Island, could be affected. Water was seen receding from shorelines \u2014 a sign of a possible tsunami \u2014 and a small one did occur, raising sea levels by about three inches. Officials later said it \u201cno longer poses a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tsunami warning was downgraded within 90 minutes and fully canceled by 12:45 p.m. Still, residents were told to \u201cremain cautious for the next 24 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 20 aftershocks followed, with the strongest at magnitude 5.2. Emergency shelters opened in coastal areas like Kodiak, and towns like King Cove evacuated vulnerable zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlaska has most of the earthquakes in the U.S.,\u201d said seismologist Michael West, \u201cbut we don\u2019t often get ones this strong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Weather Service confirmed that other West Coast states, including Oregon and Washington, were not at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Powerful Alaska Quake Triggers Tsunami Scare A strong 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off Alaska\u2019s coast Wednesday at 12:38 p.m. local time, prompting a tsunami warning and mass evacuations. The quake\u2019s epicenter was near the Shumagin Islands, southeast of Sand Point. Sirens and phone alerts urged residents from Homer to Unimak Pass to move to higher ground….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2169,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2167\/revisions\/2169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}