LOS ANGELES: A powerful earthquake rocked Anchorage on Friday (Nov 30), violently shaking homes and businesses, sending scared residents into the streets and damaging buildings in Alaska's largest city.

The 7.0-magnitude quake struck at 8.29am local time (Saturday 1.29am, Singapore time), in the middle of the school run and as workers were heading out for the day.

The US Geological Survey said the epicentre was about 13km north of Anchorage at a depth of 40km.

Police in the city of around 300,000 said it had caused "major infrastructure damage."



"Many homes and buildings are damaged," the police department said in a statement. "Many roads and bridges are closed. Stay off the roads if you don't need to drive."

There were no immediate reports of significant injuries.

A tsunami warning was issued for the Cook Inlet and the Kenai Peninsula following the massive quake but was quickly lifted.

Residents posted pictures and videos on Twitter of damage to their homes and stores - belongings knocked off of shelves, broken windows and pictures scattered on the floor.

Local CBS affiliate KTVA posted a video of a room shaking back and forth with panels falling from the ceiling and lights flickering on and off as people hid under desks.

"Everyone just sprinted out of the coffee shop I was at in Anchorage in the middle of a huge earthquake," Nat Herz, a reporter with Alaska's Energy Desk, posted on Twitter.

"Car alarms going off, etc. But not seeing any serious damage here aside from random stuff falling over. People going back to computers, meetings," he added.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said the authorities were worried about access to power following the quake.

"It's winter. It's cold. It's dark. And we're not sure what the power situation is," Murkowski said. "We're worried about breaks in gas lines."

ENSTAR Natural Gas company warned residents to beware of gas leaks while the main water company said there had been water main breaks.

Municipal Light & Power warned of possible downed power lines and said it was seeking to restore electricity to affected customers.

About two-and-a-half hours after the quake, Municipal Light & Power said 7,000 to 10,000 customers were still without power.

The company said there was no damage to electricity generation infrastructure.

The University of Alaska announced it was closing for the day. "All non-essential personnel should go home," it said in a tweet.

Anchorage airport temporarily halted incoming and outgoing flights after the air control tower was evacuated.

In an audio recording posted online, an air traffic controller could be heard telling a FedEx cargo plane to go around - abort its landing - as the quake hit.



A video posted to Twitter showed a buckled road on a highway exit ramp leading to the airport and a stranded car.

The Anchorage School District told parents to come pick up their children "when you feel it is safe to do so."

The Trans Alaska Pipeline, one of the longest crude oil pipelines in the world, was shut down as a precautionary measure so crews could inspect the system.



White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said President Donald Trump had been briefed about the quake and was monitoring damage reports.

"To the Great people of Alaska. You have been hit hard by a 'big one,'" Trump tweeted. "Your Federal Government will spare no expense. God Bless you ALL!"

Alaska was hit by a 9.2-magnitude earthquake in March 1964, the strongest ever recorded in North America, which left 139 people dead.</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.0 and 5.7 shattered highways and rocked buildings Friday in Anchorage and the surrounding area, sending people running into the streets and briefly triggering a tsunami warning for islands and coastal areas south of the city.

No tsunami arrived and there were no immediate reports of deaths or serious injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first and more powerful quake was centered about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, with a population of about 300,000. People ran from their offices or took cover under desks. The 5.7 aftershock arrived within minutes, followed by a series of smaller quakes.

"We just hung onto each other. You couldn't even stand," said Sheila Bailey, who was working at a high school cafeteria in Palmer when the quake struck. "It sounded and felt like the school was breaking apart."

A large section of an off-ramp near the Anchorage airport collapsed, marooning a car on a narrow island of pavement surrounded by deep chasms in the concrete. Several cars crashed at a major intersection in Wasilla, north of Anchorage, during the shaking.

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll said he had been told that parts of Glenn Highway, a scenic route that runs northeast out of the city past farms, mountains and glaciers, had "completely disappeared." Traffic in the three lanes heading out of the city was bumper-to-bumper and all but stopped Friday afternoon as emergency vehicles passed on the shoulder.

The quake broke store windows, knocked items off shelves, opened cracks in a two-story, downtown building, disrupted electrical service and disabled traffic lights, snarling traffic. It also threw a full-grown man out of his bathtub.

Flights at the airport were suspended for hours after the quake knocked out telephones and forced the evacuation of the control tower. And the 800-mile Alaska oil pipeline was shut down while crews were sent to inspect it for damage.

Anchorage's school system canceled classes and asked parents to pick up their children while it examined buildings for gas leaks or other damage.

Fifteen-year-old Sadie Blake and other members of the Homer High School wrestling team were at an Anchorage school gymnasium for a tournament when the bleachers started rocking and the lights went out. People started running down the bleachers in the dark, trying to get out.

"It was a gym full of screams," said team chaperone Ginny Grimes.

When it was over, Sadie said, there was only one thing she could do: "I started crying."

Jonathan Lettow was waiting with his 5-year-old daughter and other children for a school bus near their home in Wasilla when the quake struck. The children got on the ground while Lettow tried to keep them calm.

"It's one of those things where in your head, you think, 'OK, it's going to stop,' and you say that to yourself so many times in your head that finally you think, 'OK, maybe this isn't going to stop,'" he said.

Soon after the shaking ended, the school bus pulled up and the children boarded, but the driver stopped at a bridge and refused to go across because of deep cracks in the road, Lettow said.

At Chugiak High School, acting principal Allison Susel said ceiling tiles came down, books and other items fell from shelves, and water line breaks caused damage.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tweeted that her home was damaged: "Our family is intact — house is not. I imagine that's the case for many, many others." She posted a video of the inside of her parents' home, with broken dishes littering the kitchen floor. A large set of antlers appeared to have fallen off a wall of the living room.

Gov. Bill Walker issued a disaster declaration. He was in an elevator in a high-rise Anchorage office building and said it was a "rough ride" coming down. He described the quake as a 7.2, though it was unclear why his figure differed from that of the USGS.

Walker says it will take more than a week or two to repair roads damaged by the earthquake.

"This is much more significant than that," he told reporters at a news conference.

Walker leaves office on Monday, and he said members of Gov.-elect Mike Dunleavy's staff had been involved with the earthquake response to ensure a smooth transition.

"This isn't a time to do anything other than take care of Alaskans, and that's what we're doing," he said.

In Kenai, southwest of Anchorage, Brandon Slaton was home alone and soaking in his bathtub when the earthquake struck. Slaton, who weighs 209 pounds, said it created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing that threw him out of the tub.

His 120-pound mastiff panicked and tried to run down the stairs, but the house was swaying so much that the dog was thrown into a wall and tumbled down the stairs, Slaton said.

Slaton ran into his son's room after the shaking stopped. The boy's fish was on the floor, gasping, its tank shattered. Slaton put the fish in a bowl.

"It was anarchy," he said. "There's no pictures left on the walls, there's no power, there's no fish tank left. Everything that's not tied down is broke."

Alaska was the site of the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the U.S. The 9.2-magnitude quake on March 27, 1964, was centered about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Anchorage. It and the tsunami it triggered claimed about 130 lives.

The state averages 40,000 earthquakes a year, with more large quakes than the 49 other states combined. Southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes because the Earth's plates slide past each other under the region.

Alaska has been hit by a number of powerful quakes over 7.0 in recent decades, including a 7.9 last January southeast of Kodiak Island. But it is rare for a quake this big to strike so close to such a heavily populated area.

David Harper was getting coffee at a store when the low rumble began and intensified into something that sounded "like the building was just going to fall apart." He ran for the exit with other patrons.

"People who were outside were actively hugging each other," he said. "You could tell that it was a bad one."

Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Mark Thiessen in Anchorage; Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu; Gene Johnson in Seattle; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake shook southern Alaska on Friday morning, buckling roads, disrupting traffic and jamming telephone lines in and around Anchorage, the state’s largest city, but there were no reports of injuries.

The 7.0 magnitude quake struck about 8 miles (13 km) north of Anchorage, a city of 300,000 residents accounting for about 40 percent of Alaska’s population, and was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

Roads and bridges appeared to have been hardest hit, but Anchorage was otherwise largely spared from major structural damage, authorities said. Power outages and disruption of phone service was widespread.

“We did have a couple of reports of buildings collapses,” Fire Chief Jodie Hettrick told reporters about three hours after the quake, adding that three structure fires also were reported, though details were not immediately available.

“The fact that we went through something this significant with this minimal amount of damage says that we’re a very well prepared community, that our building codes and our building professionals have done a terrific job,” Mayor Ethan Berkowitz said.

The initial quake produced strong shaking within a 30-mile (50 km) radius of its epicenter, with ground movement felt as far away as Fairbanks, 250 miles to the north as the crow flies, and Kodiak, roughly the same distance to the south, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

“Thought the house was going to come apart,” Anchorage-based climatologist Brian Brettschneider wrote on Twitter, posting a photo showing his kitchen floor scattered with items that tumbled out of cupboards.

A tsunami warning was issued for Cook Inlet, linking Anchorage with the Gulf of Alaska, but was later canceled.

The Trans Alaska Pipeline, which carries crude oil 800 miles (1,300 km) from Alaska’s North Slope to the marine terminal at Valdez, was shut down for about seven hours as a precaution, but no damage to the system was detected, said a spokeswoman for the operator, Aleyska Pipeline Service Co.

The quake occurred nearly 27 miles (43 km) beneath the surface, apparently on an unnamed fault line, or fissure, inside a portion of the Earth’s crust known as Pacific plate where it bends underneath the North American plate, USGS geophysicist Brian Kilgore told Reuters.

“This is kind of an odd quake,” he said, adding that only 15 or 16 quakes of magnitude 6 or greater have been recorded during the past century in the same region of Alaska.

Morning 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. (1230 EST/1730 GMT).

“We have been through earthquakes in the past. This one was different. This was very, very scary, damage that we don’t fully understand,” Walker said in a video statement from outside a National Guard armory command center.

President Donald Trump declared a federal emergency, ordering U.S. government assistance in the earthquake response and authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts, the White House said.

Strong earthquakes are not uncommon in seismically active Alaska but tend to occur in remote, sparsely populated regions.

Alaska has recorded earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 7 to 8 at least once a year on average since 1900, according to the state government website. Southern Alaska was hit by a devastating 9.2 tremor in 1964, the second most powerful earthquake on record.

A photo posted by a reporter at television station KTVA showed a deserted newsroom, with scattered debris and a partially collapsed ceiling. CNN reported that TV 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 Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport remained open, but arrivals and departure ramps were closed and there were reports of road damage, the airport said on Twitter.

The city’s schools were evacuated and parents were notified to pick up their children.</s>A 6.6 magnitude earthquake has rocked buildings in the US state of Alaska and caused lamp posts and trees to sway, prompting people to run out of offices and seek shelter under office desks.

A 6.6 magnitude earthquake has rocked buildings in the US state of Alaska and caused lamp posts and trees to sway, prompting people to run out of offices and seek shelter under office desks.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake was centred about seven miles north of Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage.

An Associated Press reporter working in Anchorage saw cracks in a two-storey building after the quake.

It was unclear whether there were injuries.

People went back inside buildings after the earthquake but a smaller aftershock a short time later sent them running back into the streets again.

Shortly after the quake, a tsunami warning was issued for the southern Alaska coastal areas of Cook’s Inlet and part of the Kenai peninsula.

The US Geological Survey initially said it was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and then reduced the magnitude to 6.6.</s>More than 230 small earthquakes have hit parts of Alaska since Friday, when a 7.0-magnitude quake knocked out power, ripped open roads and splintered buildings near Anchorage, the US Geological Survey said.

Still, local officials said life was returning to normal even as four to eight inches of snow were expected on Sunday.

“This is the second largest earthquake we’ve had since 1964, which was a very significant earthquake,” Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz told reporters Saturday, referring a historic magnitude-9.2 quake that was the most powerful recorded temblor in US history.

“But in terms of a disaster, I think it says more about who we are than what we suffered. I would characterize this as a demonstration that Anchorage is prepared for these kind of emergencies.”

Despite damage to roads and buildings, no fatalities or serious injuries were reported, officials said. In Alaska’s largest city — with a population of about 300,000 — airports, hospitals, emergency services and most businesses were operating.

“The bottom line on the utility structure is that the power is up, the heat is on, the communication lines are opening,” said Anchorage Municipal Manager Bill Falsey.

Most of the smaller earthquakes since Friday’s big one were not felt. More than a dozen were higher than magnitude 4 and a handful greater than magnitude 5, Falsey said.

But a magnitude-5.2 aftershock about 11 p.m. Friday was the second-biggest event since a magnitude-5.7 temblor hit minutes after the main quake, according to Gavin Hayes, a research geophysicist with the USGS.

“That would have given people a shake and probably a bit of a scare given what they went through yesterday,” he told CNN on Saturday.

The magnitude-7.0 earthquake sent residents scurrying for cover when it hit about 8:30 a.m. Friday local time. The quake was centered 10 miles northeast of Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

“The most striking thing about this event was that it was so close to Anchorage,” Hayes said. “That’s why it has caused the damage that we’re seeing. Had it been a little further away from Anchorage I don’t think it would be getting very much attention. It’s not an unusual earthquake in the perspective of the tectonics of the region.”

Roads buckled under passing cars and grocery store products tumbled from shelves. In court, panicked attorneys scurried under tables as a room rocked from side to side.

“It was very loud when it came,” Berkowitz said Friday. “It was very clear that this was something bigger than what we normally experience. We live in earthquake country … but this was a big one.”

Palmer resident Kristin Dossett described the initial jolt as “absolutely terrifying.”

It was the biggest quake she has 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.

“It shook like I have never felt anything shake before,” she said.

“It just didn’t stop. It kept going and got louder and louder, and things just fell everywhere — everything off my dressers, off my bookcases, my kitchen cupboard. Just broken glass everywhere.”

Authorities don’t have firm figures on damage yet. Helicopters and drones were assessing infrastructure across the region.

The Anchorage School District canceled classes Monday and Tuesday to assess facility damage.

Philip Peterson was in a multistory building in downtown Anchorage as the structure swayed and coffee mugs fell from tables and tiles from the ceiling.

“I just jumped under my desk and had to ride it out,” Peterson said.

The 7.0 earthquake was felt up to 400 miles outside of Anchorage, said Michael West, the Alaska state seismologist.

He called it the most significant earthquake in Anchorage since 1964.

“I think it’s safe to say that, not measured in magnitude or location but in terms of how strong the ground itself shook during the earthquake,” he said during a question-and-answer session at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Two of the city’s main hospitals — Alaska Regional and Providence Alaska Medical Center — sustained damage but emergency rooms were open, according to hospital officials.

The Anchorage Police Department reported “major infrastructure damage” across the city.

Blair Braverman said she was staying in a hotel with her husband when the quake hit. She grew up in California and was familiar with earthquakes “but this was next-level,” she said.

“My husband sort of crawled across the room and threw himself on top of me and we crawled to the bathroom together and waited it out in the doorway and waited out the aftershocks.”</s>The huge tremor was recorded at 5.29pm GMT (8.29am local time), rattling buildings and terrifying residents. This was followed by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake aftershock shortly afterwards. One person located just over 12 miles (20km) away from the epicentre wrote on EMSC’s testimonies website: “Very bad. It’s ugly.” Another witness wrote: “Building was shaking and had to run out for safety!”

Terrifying footage showed a highway split into several cracks and the interior of buildings with collapsed ceilings. In a video shared online, school students could be seen hiding under their desks after the earthquake hit. Where was the earthquake? The earthquake’s epicentre was 122km north of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city in the south-central part of the state on the Cook Islet in the United States.

The city is home to nearly 300,000 people. There are no known fatalities or injuries at the moment. A tsunami warning is in effect for the Cook Inlet area and Southern Kenai Peninsula, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center.

People are being warned to stay away from the beach and to seek higher ground inland immediately if the tide starts to go out. The warning adds people in an evacuation zone should leave immediately with family members and pets without packing belongings. Official advice is to reach ground at least 30m (100ft) above sea level or an area at least two miles inland.

Anchorage is further north than Helsinki in Finland. The city is known for its cultural heritage and is home to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Although it is a mainly residential area, it is also home to nearby national parks and 1,500 moose.</s>Aisoli Lealasola prepares to clean up fallen cases of beer in a cooler at a liquor store, Value Liquor, after an earthquake on Friday, Nov. 30, 2018, in Anchorage, Alaska. Owner Mary Funner says beer, wine and other bottled alcohol was strewn throughout store aisles after the quake. She considered closing Friday until customers began lining up. They were allowed to come in in small groups. "We're still in business, but we're only open only a little bit at a time," she said. (AP Photo/Dan Joling) (AP)</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.0 and 5.7 shattered highways and rocked buildings Friday in Anchorage, sending people running into the streets and briefly triggering a warning to residents in Kodiak to flee to higher ground for fear of a tsunami.

 

 The warning was lifted without incident a short time later. There were no immediate reports of any deaths or serious injuries.

 

 The U.S. Geological Survey said the first and more powerful quake was centered about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, with a population of about 300,000. People ran from their offices or took cover under desks.

 

 "We just hung onto each other. You couldn't even stand," said Sheila Bailey, who was working at a high school cafeteria in Palmer when the quake struck. "It sounded and felt like the school was breaking apart."

 

 A large section of an off-ramp near the Anchorage airport collapsed, marooning a car on a narrow island of pavement surrounded by deep chasms in the concrete. Several cars crashed at a major intersection in Wasilla, north of Anchorage, during the shaking.

 

 Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll said he had been told that parts of Glenn Highway, a scenic route that runs northeast out of the city past farms, mountains and glaciers, had "completely disappeared."

 

 The quake broke store windows, opened cracks in a two-story building downtown, disrupted electrical service and disabled traffic lights, snarling traffic. It also threw a full-grown man out of his bathtub.

 

 All flights in and out of the airport were suspended for hours after the quake knocked out telephones and forced the evacuation of the control tower. And the 800-mile Alaska oil pipeline was shut down while crews were sent to inspect it for damage.

 

 Anchorage's school system canceled classes and asked parents to pick up their children while it examined buildings for gas leaks or other damage.

 

 Fifteen-year-old Sadie Blake and other members of the Homer High School wrestling team were at an Anchorage school gymnasium waiting for a tournament to start when the bleachers started rocking "like crazy" and the lights went out. People started running down the bleachers in the dark, trying to get out.

 

 "It was a gym full of screams," said team chaperone Ginny Grimes.

 

 When it was over, Sadie said, there was only one thing she could do: "I started crying."

 

 Jonathan Lettow was waiting with his 5-year-old daughter and other children for a school bus near their home in Wasilla when the quake struck. The children got on the ground while Lettow tried to keep them calm.

 

 "It's one of those things where in your head, you think, 'OK, it's going to stop,' and you say that to yourself so many times in your head that finally you think, 'OK, maybe this isn't going to stop,'" he said.

 

 Soon after the shaking stopped, the school bus pulled up and children boarded, but the driver stopped at a bridge and refused to go across because of deep cracks in the road, Lettow said.

 

 Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tweeted that her home was damaged: "Our family is intact - house is not. I imagine that's the case for many, many others." She posted a video of the inside of her parents' home, with broken dishes littering the kitchen floor. A large set of antlers appeared to have fallen off a wall of the living room.

 

 Officials opened an Anchorage convention center as an emergency shelter. Gov. Bill Walker issued a disaster declaration.

 

 He said he was in an office building elevator when the earthquake hit. Lights on the control board were blinking and things were falling from the ceiling, but the elevator did not stop, he said.

 

 Cereal boxes and packages of batteries littered the floor of a grocery store, and picture frames and mirrors were knocked from living room walls.

 

 People went back inside after the first earthquake struck, but the 5.7 aftershock about five minutes later sent them running back into the streets. A series of smaller aftershocks followed.

 

 A tsunami warning was issued along Alaska's southern coast. Police in Kodiak, a city of 6,100 people on Kodiak Island, 250 miles (400 kilometers) south of Anchorage). People were told to evacuate to higher ground immediately because a wave could hit within about 10 minutes.

 

 Michael Burgy, a senior technician with the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said the warning was automatically generated based on the quake's size and proximity to shore. Scientists monitored gauges to see if the quake generated big waves. Because there were none, they canceled the warning within about an hour and a half.

 

 In Kenai, southwest of Anchorage, Brandon Slaton was alone at home and soaking in the bathtub when the earthquake struck. Slaton, who weighs 209 pounds, said it created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing that threw him out of the tub.

 

 His 120-pound mastiff panicked and tried to run down the stairs, but the house was swaying so much that the dog was thrown off its feet and into a wall and tumbled to the base of the stairs, Slaton said.

 

 Slaton ran into his son's room after the shaking stopped and found his fish tank shattered and the fish on the floor, gasping. He grabbed it and put it in another bowl.

 

 "It was anarchy," he said. "There's no pictures left on the walls, there's no power, there's no fish tank left. Everything that's not tied down is broke."

 

 Alaska was the site of the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the U.S. The 9.2-magnitude quake on March 27, 1964, was centered about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Anchorage. It and the tsunami it triggered claimed about 130 lives.

 

 The state averages 40,000 earthquakes a year, with more large quakes than the 49 other states combined. Southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes because the Earth's plates slide past each other under the region.

 

 Alaska has been hit by a number of powerful quakes over 7.0 in recent decades, including a 7.9 last January southeast of Kodiak Island. But it is rare for a quake this big to strike so close to such a heavily populated area.

 

 David Harper was getting some coffee at a store when the low rumble began and intensified into something that sounded "like the building was just going to fall apart." He ran for the exit with other patrons.

 

 "People who were outside were actively hugging each other," he said. "You could tell that it was a bad one."</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.0 and 5.8 rocked buildings and shattered roads Friday morning in Anchorage, sending people running into the streets and briefly triggering a warning to residents in Kodiak to flee to higher ground for fear of a tsunami.

The warning was lifted a short time later. There were no immediate reports of any deaths or serious injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first and more powerful quake was centered about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, with a population of about 300,000. People ran from their offices or took cover under desks.

Cracks could be seen in a two-story downtown Anchorage building, and photographs posted to social media showed fractured roads and collapsed ceiling tiles at an Anchorage high school. One image showed a car stranded on an island of pavement, surrounded by cavernous cracks where the earthquake split the road.

Cereal boxes and packages of batteries littered the floor of a grocery store, and picture frames and mirrors were knocked from living room walls.

People went back inside after the first earthquake struck, but the 5.8 aftershock about five minutes later sent them running back into the streets.

A tsunami warning was issued for the southern Alaska coastal areas of Cook's Inlet and part of the Kenai peninsula. Kodiak police on Kodiak Island warned people in the city of 6,100 to "evacuate to higher ground immediately" because of "wave estimated 10 minutes."

In Kenai, north of Anchorage, Brandon Slaton was alone at home and soaking in the bathtub when the earthquake struck. Slaton, who weighs 209 pounds, said it created a powerful bath-and-forth sloshing in the bath, and before he knew it, he was thrown out of the tub by the waves.

His 120-pound mastiff panicked and tried to run down the stairs, but the house was swaying so much that the dog was thrown off its feet and into a wall and tumbled to the base of the stairs, Slaton said.

Slaton ran into his son's room after the shaking stopped and found his fish tank shattered and the fish on the floor, gasping for breath. He grabbed it and put it in another bowl.

"It was anarchy," he said. "There's no pictures left on the walls, there's no power, there's no fish tank left. Everything that's not tied down is broke."

Alaska averages 40,000 earthquakes per year, with more large quakes than the 49 other states combined. Southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes because of tectonic plates sliding past each other under the region.

David Harper was getting some coffee at a store when the low rumble began and intensified into something that sounded "like the building was just going to fall apart." Harper ran to the exit with other patrons there.

"The main thought that was going through my head as I was trying to get out the door was, 'I want this to stop,'" he said. Harper said the quake was "significant enough that the people who were outside were actively hugging each other. You could tell that it was a bad one."

On March 27, 1964, Alaska was hit by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake, the strongest recorded in U.S. history, centered about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Anchorage. The quake, which lasted about 4½ minutes, and the tsunami it triggered claimed about 130 lives.</s>A 6.7 magnitude earthquake has rocked buildings in Anchorage, the U.S. Geological Survey says

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A 6.7 magnitude earthquake has rocked buildings in Anchorage, the U.S. Geological Survey says.
More than 1,000 aftershocks shake Alaska after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake knocked out power, ripped open roads and splintered buildings in Anchorage.