ska (AP) - The Latest on the earthquake in Alaska (all times local):

Scientists say the damaging Alaska earthquake and aftershocks occurred on a type of fault in which one side moves down and away from the other side.

Seismologist Lucy Jones told reporters Friday at the California Institute of Technology that the fault is within the Pacific tectonic plate that is diving under Alaska, a mechanism that produces the largest earthquakes in the U.S.

Jones says the type of damage being reported is not surprising.

She says the area in which the quake occurred has loose sediments containing lots of water and when the ground moves it creates liquefaction, or "temporary quicksand."

Jones says liquefaction can cause damage to structures because the ground moves out from beneath them.

Tim Craig, an owner of Anchorage True Value Hardware in south Anchorage, says the quake knocked hundreds of items onto the floor and caused two stockroom shelves to become unbolted from the wall and collapse.

No one was hurt. Six off-duty employees, and some customers, offered to help clean up after the earthquake hit Tuesday morning.

Craig and his wife were driving to the store when the quake hit and he says their car was bouncing.

An overhead traffic signal bobbing over their heads caused immediate concern and his wife pulled over because she was worried it would fall.

The quake knocked out numerous stoplights, snarling traffic in downtown Anchorage.

April Pearce was at her desk at work in the assessor's office in the small city of Soldotna and started filming once she realized the rumbling of the Alaska earthquake was the start of something big.

In the video, the murmurs of her colleagues can be heard as filing cabinets jostle.

She says in an email later that people were gasping and panicking and called the event "spooky."

Her home escaped major damage, but some Christmas decorations fell down.

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 earthquake hit.

She says the bleachers started rocking "like crazy" and then the lights went out. People ran the bleachers in the pitch dark, trying to get out.

By the time it was over, Sadie was still in the gym and says she started crying while hanging out in a nearby mall with her team.

Molly McCammon says was at home waiting for a work teleconference when the quake started.

She says she's lived in Alaska 45 years and called Friday's earthquake "worst earthquake I've ever been in."

McCammon had taken a tour Thursday of the Anchorage Emergency Operations Center in her role as a member of the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council. One of the topics was earthquake preparation.

She says: "Then it happens the next day."

McCammon says the quake reminded her how much more emergency preparation she needs to do. She plans to sign up for an emergency alert system and make sure she has an emergency kit on hand.

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll says he's been told parts of a scenic highway that heads from Anchorage toward mountains and glaciers have sunken and "completely disappeared" following the earthquake.

He says officials are evaluating the damage to the Glenn Highway but some was so significant that it will probably "take a long time to repair."

Doll also says there has been damage reported to bridges.

President Donald Trump has tweeted that the federal government "will spare no expense" helping Alaska following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that shook Anchorage.

Trump on Tuesday tweeted "you have been hit hard by a 'big one'" and asked residents to follow officials' directions.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin tweeted that her family is OK but said her "house is not." She did not elaborate but said the thinks "that's the case for many, many others."

The police chief and the mayor of Anchorage said they were unaware of any reports of deaths of injuries after the quake shook buildings and opened up crevices and cracks in roads.

Anchorage Fire Department Jodie Hettrick says there were reports of buildings collapsing but she did not have further details.

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll says he is unaware of reports of deaths or serious injuries following the earthquake that rocked the state's largest city.

Doll made the statement to reporters Tuesday after the quake shook buildings and damaged road infrastructure.

It was felt 350 miles away in Fairbanks.

The Alaska Railroad has suspended all operations amid "severe" damage at their Anchorage Operations Center and unknown track conditions throughout the state.

External Affairs Manager Tim Sullivan says the operations center lost power and is experiencing flooding following the quake Friday that rocked Anchorage and surrounding areas.

He says: "It's tough to run trains when you have no dispatch."

Sullivan says no reports of track damage have yet been reported, but it will take a day or two for staff to fully assess conditions. Until the tracks are cleared for use, all railroad operations will are suspended, Sullivan said.

The quake was felt 350 miles away in Fairbanks.

The operators of the 800-mile long trans-Alaska pipeline said they shut the system down as a precaution following the earthquake in south central Alaska.

She says there is no known damage to the pipeline.

She says data will be assessed at an operations center and a physical inspection of the line will be performed.

She says pipeline can be restarted before the physical assessment is complete.

The Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage says it has canceled elective surgeries and that the hospital experienced multiple water leaks.

The hospital says in a statement that there was not a large influx of patients after the quake rocked Anchorage Tuesday morning.

There were no reports of serious injuries or deaths and there were no reports of injuries at the hospital.

The Federal Aviation Administration says operations have stopped at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport following the earthquake that rocked buildings and damaged roads.

FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer in Washington state said Friday it's not known when inbound flights will resume and that travelers should check with their airlines.

Kenitzer and Alaska transportation spokeswoman Meadow Bailey say telephone service is out at the airport.

The FAA spokesman says the airport tower was evacuated and flights that could be diverted were being sent to Kodiak.

He says inbound international flights to Anchorage were being guided by controllers at a regional radar approach facility.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker tweeted that he has issued a disaster declaration.

The White House says President Donald Trump has been briefed about the earthquake that rocked Anchorage, causing damage to buildings and infrastructure.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted Tuesday that Trump is monitoring the reports of damage.

Trump is in Argentina at the Group of 20 summit.

Huckabee adds: "We are praying for the safety of all Alaskans."

There have been no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

The earthquake that shook Anchorage and damaged roadways also knocked many traffic lights out of service and has snarled traffic.

Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the state's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said the earthquake also disrupted some communications and electrical service.

The Anchorage School District canceled classes for its more than 100 schools and asked parents to pick up their kids when they could.

The district wants to examine its buildings for potential damage and check for any potential gas leaks.

State government offices in Anchorage were also closed so officials could assess damage.

Officials have canceled a tsunami warning for coastal areas of southern Alaska following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that shook Anchorage.

National Tsunami Warning Center senior technician Michael Burgy said the tsunami warning was automatically generated,

Officials monitored gauges to see if any underwater landslides would generate tsunami waves.

Because there were none, the warning was canceled.

Police had told residents of the island community of Kodiak to head to higher ground.

The quake damaged buildings in Anchorage and buckled roads and sent people running into the streets.

There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths.

Police in Alaska's island community of Kodiak say residents are heeding advice to head to higher ground because of a tsunami warning issued after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook Anchorage.

Kodiak has about 6,000 residents and the city is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) south of Anchorage.

The tsunami warning issued by the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, was automatically generated following the Friday morning temblor.

Senior center technician Michael Burgy says gauges are being monitored to determine if any underwater landslides have generated tsunami waves.

If there are none, the warning will be canceled.

The warning could be expanded if concrete data is received about waves that have been generated.

Brandon Slaton was alone and home and soaking in the bathtub when the Alaska earthquake struck.

Slaton just moved to Kenai, Alaska with his wife from Arizona and had never felt an earthquake before the 7.0 magnitude temblor hit on Friday morning.

Slaton says the quake created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing in the bathtub and before he knew it, he'd been thrown out of the tub by the force of the waves.

His 120-pound (54-kilogram mastiff panicked and tried to run down the stairs, but the house was swaying back and forth so much that she was thrown off her feet and into a wall and tumbled to the base of the stairs.

Slaton says: "It was anarchy. 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."

Slaton ran into his son's room after the shaking stopped and found his fish tank shattered and the fish on the closet floor, gasping for breath.

He grabbed the Betta fish and put it in another bowl.

He says the area was eerily quiet. His children, 11 and 16, were evacuated from school.

Police in Alaska's Kodiak island community have told residents to head to higher ground amid the tsunami threat from the earthquake that rocked buildings in Anchorage, caused damage to roads and sent office workers running out to the streets.

Kodiak is an island about 200 miles south of Anchorage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it was a 7.0-magnitude quake and tsunami warnings were issued for southern Alaska coastal areas.

Photographs posted to social media sites showed damage that included collapsed ceiling tiles at an Anchorage high school and buckled roadway pavement in places.

Cereal boxes and packages of batteries littered the floor of a grocery store after the earthquake Tuesday morning that rocked buildings in Alaska's largest city, and picture frames and mirrors were knocked from living room walls.

Alaska averages 40,000 earthquakes per year, with more large quakes than the other 49 states combined.

Southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes due to tectonic plates sliding past each other under the region. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Pacific plate is sliding northwestward and plunges beneath the North American plate in southern Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands.

On March 27, 1964, Alaska was hit by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake, the strongest recorded in U.S. history, centered about 75 miles east of Anchorage. The quake, which lasted about 4½ minutes, and the tsunami it triggered claimed about 130 lives.

Anchorage lawyer Justin Capp says he was getting ready for work when he felt the shaking start.

He grabbed on to the doorframe in the hallway and the door slammed into his hands, scraping his fingers and hand.

Capp says he's lived in Anchorage eight years and that Tuesday's quake was the worst he had experienced.

Another lawyer, Hank Graper, was driving when the quake struck. He first thought his vehicle had a flat tire, then thought it was exploding. He realized it was an earthquake after he saw traffic poles swaying.

Graper called it the most "violent" earthquake he's experienced in his 20 years in Anchorage.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially said it was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and later boosted the magnitude to 7.0

The National Tsunami Warning Center has issued a tsunami warning for coastal zones of southern Alaska following an earthquake that rocked buildings in downtown Anchorage.

The center said Friday that the warning was in effect for parts of the state's Cook Inlet and the southern Kenai peninsula.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially said it was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and then reduced that to 6.6.

The quake was centered about 7 miles north of Alaska's largest city.

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

The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake Friday morning was centered about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Alaska's largest city.

An Associated Press reporter working in downtown Anchorage saw cracks in a 2-story 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.

Check back for updates to this developing story.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>"Many homes and buildings are damaged," the department said in a statement Friday morning. "Many roads and bridges are closed. Stay off the roads if you don't need to drive."

Police officers were dispatched across the region to handle "multiple situations," the department said, although it did not elaborate beyond saying it was working with the school district to check on children there.

A journalist with the news station KTVA shared a photo of the damage in that newsroom, in which pieces of the ceiling had apparently fallen on desks and the floor.

Several unconfirmed photos on Twitter showed major damage to roads around Anchorage, with buckled and broken asphalt.</s>An Associated Press reporter working in downtown Anchorage saw cracks in a 2-story building after the quake. It was unclear whether there were injuries.</s>An Associated Press reporter working in downtown Anchorage saw cracks in a 2-story building after the quake. It was unclear whether there were injuries.</s>An Associated Press reporter working in downtown Anchorage saw cracks in a 2-story building after the quake. It was unclear whether there were injuries.</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Chris Riekena was driving his 7-year-old son to school when his car started acting up. As he pulled over, he realized the problem wasn't his car — it was a huge earthquake.

Riekena turned around to calm his son in the back seat and when he looked forward again, the road ahead of him was sinking into the earth. He pulled his son out of the car as light poles along the road swayed in the air.

By the time the shaking stopped Friday, the car just in front of his on the freeway was marooned on an island of asphalt with a huge chasm on both sides.

"It was probably a good 30 to 40 seconds of slow-motion disaster," said Riekena, an engineer with the Alaska Department of Transportation who later returned to the site for his job.

"Thankfully I pulled over when I did," he said. "I've walked around the site enough over the last few hours that I've replayed that a few times."

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 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, about 45 miles from Anchorage, when the quake struck. "It sounded and felt like the school was breaking apart."

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, knocked items off shelves, opened cracks in a two-story building downtown, disrupted electrical service and disabled traffic lights, snarling traffic.

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 for hours 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.

Jonathan Lettow was waiting with his 5-year-old daughter and other children for a school bus near their home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage, when the quake struck. The children got on the ground in a circle while Lettow tried to keep them calm and watched for falling trees.

"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, he said.

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.

In Kenai, southwest of Anchorage, Brandon Slaton was soaking in his bathtub when the earthquake struck. The temblor created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing that threw him out of the tub, he said.

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; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Gene Johnson in Seattle; Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Chris Riekena was driving his 7-year-old son to school when his car started acting up. As he pulled over, he realized the problem wasn't his car - it was a huge earthquake.

Riekena turned around to calm his son in the back seat and when he looked forward again, the road ahead of him was sinking into the earth. He pulled his son out of the car as light poles along the road swayed in the air.

By the time the shaking stopped Friday, the car just in front of his on the freeway was marooned on an island of asphalt with a huge chasm on both sides.

"It was probably a good 30 to 40 seconds of slow-motion disaster," said Riekena, an engineer with the Alaska Department of Transportation who later returned to the site for his job.

"Thankfully I pulled over when I did," he said. "I've walked around the site enough over the last few hours that I've replayed that a few times."

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 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, about 45 miles from Anchorage, when the quake struck. "It sounded and felt like the school was breaking apart."

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, knocked items off shelves, opened cracks in a two-story building downtown, disrupted electrical service and disabled traffic lights, snarling traffic.

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 for hours 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.

Jonathan Lettow was waiting with his 5-year-old daughter and other children for a school bus near their home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage, when the quake struck. The children got on the ground in a circle while Lettow tried to keep them calm and watched for falling trees.

"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, he said.

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.

In Kenai, southwest of Anchorage, Brandon Slaton was soaking in his bathtub when the earthquake struck. The temblor created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing that threw him out of the tub, he said.

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; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Gene Johnson in Seattle; Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.</s>ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Chris Riekena was driving his 7-year-old son to school when his car started acting up. As he pulled over, he realized the problem wasn't his car — it was a huge earthquake.

Riekena turned around to calm his son in the back seat and when he looked forward again, the road ahead of him was sinking into the earth. He pulled his son out of the car as light poles along the road swayed in the air.

By the time the shaking stopped Friday, the car just in front of his on the freeway was marooned on an island of asphalt with a huge chasm on both sides.

"It was probably a good 30 to 40 seconds of slow-motion disaster," said Riekena, an engineer with the Alaska Department of Transportation who later returned to the site for his job.

"Thankfully I pulled over when I did," he said. "I've walked around the site enough over the last few hours that I've replayed that a few times."

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 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, about 45 miles from Anchorage, when the quake struck. "It sounded and felt like the school was breaking apart."

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, knocked items off shelves, opened cracks in a two-story building downtown, disrupted electrical service and disabled traffic lights, snarling traffic.

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 for hours 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.

Jonathan Lettow was waiting with his 5-year-old daughter and other children for a school bus near their home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage, when the quake struck. The children got on the ground in a circle while Lettow tried to keep them calm and watched for falling trees.

"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, he said.

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.

In Kenai, southwest of Anchorage, Brandon Slaton was soaking in his bathtub when the earthquake struck. The temblor created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing that threw him out of the tub, he said.

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; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Gene Johnson in Seattle; Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.</s>Alaska is now beginning to survey the damage of powerful back-to-back earthquakes that struck the area around Anchorage on Friday, an event that resulted in damage to buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. Speaking with reporters following the quake, Alaska Governor Bill Walker said that resulting disruption and needed repairs could last “quite some time.”

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck around 8:29 a.m. local time followed by ensuing, smaller earthquakes. Citing United States Geological Survey research geophysicist Gavin Hayes, CNN reported Saturday that “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.” Despite earthquakes being common in the area, Friday’s event was still significant.

“This is a very earthquake-prone region. Much more so than California,” climatologist Brian Brettschneider told Gizmodo by email. “That said, it’s been over 50 years since an earthquake this strong was felt in Anchorage. The good news is that most of Anchorage was built, or rebuilt, after the great 1964 Earthquake (M9.2). That means very strict building codes.”

He also noted that there were no injuries or fatalities, adding: “If you had to be in a city of over [a quarter of a million] people and have an M7 earthquake hit, this is the best place to be.”

Videos shared on social media captured widespread damage across Anchorage and the surrounding area. One video shared by Brettschneider on Twitter captured drone footage of cracks in ice at Anchorage’s Waldron Lake. According to Brettschneider, the ice was 8 inches thick.

Nat Herz, a reporter for Alaska Public Media, told NPR that he was sitting at a coffee shop in Anchorage when he “just felt like sort of a rumble or a buzz.”



“But then things kind of got louder, and things started really shaking and shaking hard. And people were kind of looking around,” he told NPR. “And then I think, you know, someone went for the door, and everyone else went for the door. And, you know, everyone kind of hurried outside. And kind of once things settled down, everyone went back in.”

At least two highways were closed down following the earthquake, with local CBS affiliate KTVA reporting that area’s Glenn Highway endured significant damage that included a “massive sinkhole.” Power losses also reportedly affected tens of thousands of people following the initial earthquake.

Governor Walker said in a phone interview Friday that there’s a possibility that some infrastructure damage could take weeks or months to repair, especially given the winter season. Walker also said he spoke with President Donald Trump, after which call KTVA reported the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved assistance for the area.

“It’s going to be a disruption for quite some time,” Walker said. “We’ve been on the phone with the White House a number of times today [and] took a call from President Trump. They talked about their desire to help us, and we appreciate that very much.”

According to Alaska Public Media, schools in the area are expected to be closed until at least Wednesday of next week.</s>An Associated Press reporter working in downtown Anchorage saw cracks in a 2-story building after the quake. It was unclear whether there were injuries.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits Alaska, with the epicenter in Anchorage. Severe damage is reported.