AN earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.2 has struck off Alaska’s Kodiak Island, prompting a tsunami warning for a large part of coastal Alaska and Canada’s British Columbia.
The remainder of the US West Coast was under a watch after the strong earthquake hit at 12:32am local time and was recorded about 175 miles south-east of Kodiak Island. Warnings from the National Weather Service sent to mobile phones in Alaska warned: “Emergency Alert. Tsunami danger on the coast. Go to high ground or move inland.”
Kodiak officials warned residents to evacuate if they lived in low-lying areas.
About two hours after the quake, the city of Kodiak, which was projected to see the first wave at about 1:45am, still had no reports of a wave hitting.
Lieutenant Tim Putney of the Kodiak Police Department said: “We haven’t seen anything yet or had any reports of a wave.”
However, officials were telling people to hold fast at evacuation centres until further notice. He said the town has several shelters above the 100-foot mark, and they were still encouraging people below that level to evacuate.
The earthquake woke Lt Putney up out of a dead sleep, and he estimates it shook for at least 30 seconds.
“I’ve been Kodiak for 19 years that was the strongest, longest lasting one I’ve ever felt,” he said by telephone. But he said the police department has received no reports of damage.
The Alaska Earthquake Information Centre said the quake was felt widely in several communities on the Kenai Peninsula and throughout southern Alaska, but it also had no immediate reports of damage. People reported on social media that the quake was felt hundreds of miles away, in Anchorage.
Kerry Seifert, an emergency management specialist in the state emergency operations centre, said the centre had not received any reports of damage as the timeline for initial waves reaching some communities had passed.
“This is almost too soon to be into it to get that kind of information,” he said. “And certainly, communities are climbing hills, some of them.”
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