A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Alaska on Wednesday about 54 miles south of Sand Point. Image by U.S. Geological Survey
July 16 (UPI) — A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Alaska on Wednesday and a tsunami warning was canceled two hours later for the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island.
The temblor struck at 12:37 p.m. local time at a depth of 12.5 miles about 54 miles south of Sand Point, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The earthquake was felt throughout the Alaska Peninsula and southern Alaska, the Alaska Earthquake Center said. Anchorage, the state’s capital, is about 557 miles from the quake’s center.
The Alaska Earthquake Center reported about 30 aftershocks in two hours after the earthquake. The largest one was magnitude 5.2.
Dave Snider, a tsunami warning coordinator with the National Tsunami Warning Center, told KTUU-TV that because it happened in shallow water they were “not expecting a large event.”
The National Weather Service in Anchorage, Alaska, first issued a tsunami warning right after the quake, then it was downgraded and lifted at 2:43 p.m. Warnings were sounded in Sand Point, Cold Bay and Kodiak.
The Kodiak Emergency Operations Center reported a 6-inch wave that was confirmed by the U.S. Coast Guard.
State Seismologist Michael West told KTUU-TV that activity is common after an earthquake and aftershocks can be expected in the “coming days, weeks and even months.”
The area is part of Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
“This is the fifth earthquake exceeding magnitude 7.0 in a very small stretch of the Aleutians, just a couple hundred kilometers, since 2020,” West said. “Clearly, something is going on.”