Anchorage Daily News

A major earthquake rocked a sparsely populated area of Interior Alaska early Sunday afternoon, cracking highways and roads, knocking over fuel tanks and shaking rural homes.

Bruce Turner of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer said the magnitude 7.9 quake hit at 1:13 p.m Alaska Standard Time and was centered 90 miles south of Fairbanks.

"It shook for a good 30 seconds," he said.

The quake was felt strongly in Anchorage about 270 miles south of the epicenter.

The quake triggered the trans-Alaska pipeline's automatic detection system, said Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. spokesman Mike Heatwole. Operators then manually shut the pipeline down shortly after 2 p.m.

The company reported the pipe was intact but support structures were damaged in an area 48 miles south of Delta.

In five locations, vertical support members, the H-shape devises that hold the aboveground portions of the pipeline, were damaged. In eight locations, the "shoes" that connect the pipeline to the vertical support members were on the ground, leaving the pipeline suspended, Heatwole said.

Repair crews were working to alleviate stress on the pipeline with cribbing structures, Heatwole said.

"We'll also be mobilizing several additional crews at first light," Heatwole said.

Heatwole said company officials should may know by midmorning Monday how long it will take to restart the pipeline. He did not know whether North Slope crude oil deliveries would be disrupted.

The earthquake occurred on the Denali Fault and had a shallow depth, said John Lahr, geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. Shallow earthquakes generally are felt over a wider area.

"We expected this would have surface rupture that geologists could see on the ground and study," he said.

The earthquake did not generate a tsunami considered damaging to Alaska, western states or Canada, Turner said.

In Seattle, some houseboats on Lake Union shook loose from their moorings during the earthquake more than 1,400 miles to the north. Power was cut off to one houseboat, and others slammed into docks. The Center for Wooden Boats on the lake's south shore was shaken off its sewage pipe, leaving it without a working bathroom. No one was hurt.

Alaska State Troopers received a report of one injury. Spokesman Greg Wilkinson said a 76-year-old woman in Mentasta broke her arm after slipping on stairs during the quake. He said a Mentasta apartment building also was evacuated and occupants were gathering at the school because of a gas smell.

Trooper Lt. Lee Farmer said a 3-foot crack opened up in one lane of the George Parks Highway, the main road between Fairbanks and Anchorage. A trooper was on the scene and a state Department of Transportation crew was on its way to assess damage.

"Anybody with one of those lowriders out of Anchorage probably doesn't want to head that way," Farmer said.

Troopers also responded to damage reports on the Alaska Highway near Northway, 256 miles southeast of Fairbanks.

The Richardson Highway, which parallels the trans-Alaska pipeline between Valdez and Fairbanks, was closed near Paxson after gaps opened that were 2-to-6 foot wide and 5 feet deep, Wilkinson said. About 20 miles north, the ground on one side of the highway had dropped more than 2 feet.

The worst reports of damage were along a two-mile stretch of the Tok Cutoff, which leads from the Alaska Highway to Southcentral highways connected to Anchorage. There were hundreds of yards of 6-foot openings in the road and numerous rock slides.

The Alaska Railroad halted trains immediately after the earthquake. Trains were delayed about three hours until after track and bridges were inspected, said evening chief dispatcher Donald Jubb.

Residents along the Tok Cutoff said the quake knocked over fuel tanks.

In Slana, which has no electric utility, families use diesel fuel to power generators. Sharrel Webster said without help in setting her family's fuel tanks upright, she was likely to lose food in her freezer.

A semitrailer the family uses for storage was pushed over.

"It's laying on its side," she said. The well casing on the family's well lifted 2 inches out of the ground and cracks opened up so wide that she could stick her hand in them.

Randy Schmoker, a metal worker in Porcupine Creek on the Tok Cutoff, was in his shop when he felt the ground move.

"I thought, 'Oh good, an earthquake,' and then it got worse and worse," he said.

The quake tipped over a band saw and other heavy tools, his 300-gallon outside fuel tank and moved a 150-pound anvil 20 feet across the floor.

He stepped outside and saw the tops of trees whipping 20 to 30 feet back and forth. He said he expected the ground to crack open after a series of 8-inch waves spread out before him.

"They looked like ocean waves," he said.

An hour after the quake, aftershocks were still moving the ground every five minutes. Schmoker said he's a big game hunter and usually enjoys short earthquakes.

"A charging brown bear I can handle," he said. "This scared the hell out of me."

Jay Capps, who owns a small grocery store midway between Tok and Glennallen, said he felt a low-level shaking for 15 or 20 seconds and then two "good-sized pops" before the earthquake hit.

He and two other people ran from the store.

"You actually felt the earthquake coming," Capps said. "It shook so bad you could not stand up on the front porch."

He watched as a 5-ton U-haul in the store parking lot sat rocking by itself. "It sounded like the trees were breaking roots under the ground," he said.

Capps' wife, Debbie, was upstairs when the earthquake hit. She grabbed the china hutch and saved it from falling over, but an entertainment center with 26-inch television was destroyed.

Capps said nearly everything fell off store shelves.

"My store smells like liquid smoke, picante sauce and mayonnaise," he said.

Karen Eldridge, who owns the Paxson Lodge with her husband Chester, said she also knew an earthquake was on its way.

"I heard it coming. A big thud. A great big thud and then I looked at my plant and it was shaking and I says 'Here it comes."'

"We all ran outside and was waiting out there for it to quit and it kept going and going and going and going, and then it hit again. We had three big jolts ... I held onto a big post."

Liquor bottles broke in the bar. Glasses on the bar smashed to the floor. Pictures flew off the walls. Oil in the fryer sloshed onto the kitchen floor.

Eldridge said she isn't going to venture into the storage room until tomorrow to see what kind of damage is in there.

"We have a big mess," she said.

The earthquake was the second major episode in Interior Alaska in the last two weeks. A magnitude 6.7 earthquake centered about 30 miles southeast of Denali National Park hit at 3:27 a.m. Oct. 23.

Earlier Sunday, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake centered 73 miles east of Denali Park hit at 9:47 a.m.