From Yahoo.com…
Residents scrambled to higher ground or to evacuate coastal towns late Wednesday and early Thursday after a massive earthquake struck off Alaska’s coast, triggering aftershocks and now-canceled tsunami warnings.
Pat Branson, mayor of Kodiak, the major city of Alaska’s Kodiak Island, told CNN the magnitude 8.2 earthquake was the strongest in the area since the 1960’s. The quake triggered the area’s third evacuation in 18 months.
If the magnitude 8.2 estimate holds, the quake may be the most powerful in North America since a magnitude 8.7 earthquake in Alaska, Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at University of Miami’s Department of Atmospheric Science, said on Twitter.
Wednesday’s quake hit 56 miles east southeast of Perryville, Alaska, at about 8:15 p.m, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake was felt throughout the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak, the Alaska Earthquake Center said.
