The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck near Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday morning crumbled roads and splintered buildings, sent residents scurrying for cover and triggered a tsunami warning for a time, authorities said.
The booming quake hit about 8:30 a.m. local time some 10 miles northeast of Anchorage, at a depth of 21 miles, according to the US Geological Survey. Aftershocks continued after the tsunami warning was canceled.
“It was very loud when it came,” Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz said. “It was very clear that this was something bigger than what we normally experience. We live in earthquake country so folks … but this was a big one.”
Social media and television news video depicted scenes of chaos, including students taking shelter under desks while sending texts from their phones, roads buckling under passing cars, grocery store products tumbling from shelves, hospital workers scrambling for cover and panicked attorneys under tables as a courtroom rocked from side to side.
“It was absolutely terrifying,” Kristin Dossett, a resident of Palmer, Alaska, told CNN. It was the most violent quake she felt in her 37 years in a region where temblors are common, Dossett said. One aftershock moved her piano a foot and half from the wall.
There were no reports of fatalities or injuries. The US Geological Survey has reported dozens of aftershocks. The largest, registering 5.7, was located in the city of Anchorage. Seismologists predicted many more in the coming days and weeks.
7.2 earthquake here in Anchorage, Alaska. This is a video my dad took from the Minnesota exit ramp from international. 😰😰 pic.twitter.com/1yOGj3yz9q
— sarah m (@sarahh_mars) November 30, 2018
KTVA’s Cassie Schirm tweeted a video showing toppled chairs and hanging metal from the TV station’s Anchorage newsroom.
More on the damage from the newsroom. #ktva #earthquakedamage #alaska #weather pic.twitter.com/pAHJZqvzJF
— Cassie Schirm (@cassieschirmtv) November 30, 2018
Philip Peterson, an Alaska resident, had been working in a multi-story in downtown Anchorage when the quake hit. “I was just working and then within a half a second, I could tell this was bigger than anything I’d been in before, and it wasn’t going to stop,” he told CNN. Peterson said the quake is “the biggest one I’ve ever been involved in.” When the quake hit, he felt “a big jolt. It sounded like a big crack, you could hear this big crack, then it just jolted back and forth. Stuff was falling off the tables, coffee mugs, lamps and ceiling tiles.” “I just jumped under my desk and had to ride it out,” Peterson said.
High school student Alyson Petrie caught this video in the midst of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska. Petrie captured this footage in an art room at Colony High School.
I’m shaking and out teachers are keeping us under our tables and telling us that there will be an after shocking maybe in 5 minutes or tomorrow we don't know I’m in the art classroom and everything is literally destroyed pic.twitter.com/i9akuWoVwD
— Alyson Petrie (@AlysonPetrie7) November 30, 2018
Former Alaska Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin tweeted that her house was not intact after the quake, but did not elaborate on specific damage. “[Pray] for Alaska. Our family is intact – house is not,” she wrote. “So thankful to be safe.”
