Alaska News

5.8-magnitude earthquake west of Willow rattles Southcentral, Interior Alaska

A 5.8-magnitude earthquake Wednesday afternoon centered about 60 miles west of Willow rattled Alaska from the Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage north to Fairbanks.

"Thought a moose was headbutting my camper," Becky Woltjer, 35, wrote on Facebook from the home in Willow she shares with her husband and 3-year-old son.

The earthquake struck around 2:30 p.m. about 70 miles below the earth's surface. Its center was about 20 miles south of that of the 6.2-magnitude earthquake that jostled the state in September 2014, according to Michael West, state seismologist at the Alaska Earthquake Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

West said Wednesday's earthquake was "undoubtedly tied to the Pacific Ocean tectonic plate" underneath Cook Inlet.

Most people felt the quake in two waves, West said. The first, called the "body waves," travel in a fast, straight path through the interior of the earth. Several seconds later come the rolling "surface waves," he said. "They are slower, but tend to be larger."

Woltjer, who moved to Willow from Minnesota a few days ago, said it was the second hit that triggered slight concern. She last felt an earthquake as a young girl.

"It really started shaking," she said. "I was just trying to figure out what was going on."

The Alaska Earthquake Center said it did not detect any aftershocks during the hour after the earthquake, nor did it receive any reports of damage. The National Weather Service reported that it did not expect a tsunami.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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