A strong earthquake was felt over a 175 mile swath of Alaska, including the state’s largest city on Monday, but there were no immediate reports of damage beyond items knocked off shelves.
The Alaska and West Coast Tsunami Warning Center said the magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurred at about 4.45 pm and was centered about 30 miles northwest of Anchorage. The Alaska Earthquake Information Center said the center was 27 miles west of Anchorage.
Guy Urban, a geophysicist at the Tsunami warning center, said the quake was not expected to generate a tsunami. He said the center had reports of a residents felt the quake throughout the Anchorage metro area and beyond. It was also felt as far south as the fishing community of Homer, 125 miles southwest of Anchorage and in Willow, 50 miles north of the city.
Alaska is seismically active and has frequent earthquakes, although most are too small or too remote to be felt.
Alaska is the site of the biggest earthquake recorded in North America, a magnitude-9.2 quake on Good Friday 1964 that struck 75 miles east of Anchorage on Prince William Sound. The quake and the ensuing tsunami killed 115 people in Alaska and 16 people in California.