Quake rattles Alaska

last updated 8 January 2015

Fairbanks, Alaska

A violent earthquake shook remote stretches of Alaska this week, splitting highways with 6-foot-wide cracks and forcing workers to shut down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Only one minor injury was reported. The quake, centered 90 miles south of Fairbanks, measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, making it the world’s strongest temblor this year. The tremors rippled waters as far away as Louisiana. “One poor guy across the canal from us fell off his sailboat,” said Carol Barcia of Mandeville, La. In Alaska, the earthquake crumpled solid earth into 8-inch waves, said Randy Schmoker of Porcupine Creek. “A charging brown bear I can handle,” he said. “This scared the hell out of me.”