| Earthquake cracks the road open at Minnesota Drive exit ramp near Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. November 30, 2018 in this still image taken from a social media video. Scott Marsteller/via REUTERS |
A powerful earthquake shook southern Alaska on Friday morning, buckling roads, disrupting traffic and knocking television stations off the air in its largest city.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck just south of Point MacKenzie, Alaska, with an epicenter 8.1 miles (13 km) north of Anchorage, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It had a depth of 26.7 miles (43 km).
A tsunami warning was issued for Cook Inlet, which links Anchorage with the Gulf of Alaska, but it was later canceled.
The quake was followed by numerous aftershocks, and climatologist Rick Thoman reported that he felt it in Fairbanks, about 350 miles north of Anchorage.
Video posted on social media showed supermarkets with items from shelves strewn across the floors in the quake’s aftermath, and of television station KTVA’s newsroom in shambles.
A photo posted by a reporter at KTVA showed a deserted showroom, with part of its ceiling collapsed and debris scattered through the room. CNN reported that television station KTUU, an NBC affiliate, also was knocked off the air.
KTUU’s website featured a photo of a snow-covered highway that had buckled, with a car sitting between two deep fissures crossing the highway.
The Alaska Department of Transportation told KTUU that there may have been a landslide along a main highway about 20 miles south of downtown Anchorage, the state’s capital and most populous city, with about 300,000 residents.
Rush-hour traffic in Anchorage came to a standstill and jammed up heading out of town after the quake struck at around 8:30 a.m. local time (1230 EST/1730 GMT).
“Thought the house was going to come apart,” Anchorage-based climatologist Brian Brettschneider wrote on Twitter, posting a picture of his kitchen floor scattered with items that had fallen from cupboards.
The city’s schools were evacuated and parents were notified to pick up their children.
Alaska has had an average of one magnitude 7 to 8 earthquake every year since 1900, according to the state government website. The state has more earthquakes than any other U.S. region, the website said. Southern Alaska experienced the second largest earthquake ever recorded in 1964, which had a magnitude of 9.2.