Magnitude 7.3 Earthquake Of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands

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‘It was shaking and rumbly’: Tsunami warning in ALASKA as huge earthquake strikes coast (Daily Mail, June 24, 2011):

A magnitude-7.3 earthquake shook a large swath of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Thursday evening as a tsunami warning was issued.

Residents of small coastal towns were sent to higher ground as officials issued a tsunami warning in the trembler’s wake.

The quake was centred about 122 miles east of Atka, about 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage and was recorded at a depth of 26 miles.

The quake was felt through the central Aleutians and as far east as Dutch Harbor and Unalaska, but no damage was reported, officials said.

‘It was shaking, it was just a little rumbly and lasted about 20 seconds’, Atka resident Rodney Jones said.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center posted a tsunami warning for some coastal areas of Alaska.

The warning covered an area from 80 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor to about 125 miles west of Adak.

But it was cancelled about an hour after the quake.

Jones said it appeared all of the town’s 61 residents took to higher ground when they heard the tsunami warning, which he heard issued over radio.

The townspeople gathered on a high hill for about an hour, near the city’s new water tank.

During their wait for the all-clear signal, he said a priest with the town’s Russian Orthodox Church recited prayers.

In Dutch Harbor, longshoreman Jim Paulin said warning sirens also caused hundreds of people to begin climbing up a nearby hill.

‘Right now there’s hundreds of people up on the hilltop,’ he said, before the all-clear was given.

‘I can look across the bay and see people on another hilltop.’

After the tsunami warning was cancelled, he said everybody was ‘calm. It seems like everybody’s kind of enjoying it. It’s good weather.’

Mr Paulin said no one seemed panicked because the city has been evacuated in the past. But he added: ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

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