The 1964 Anchorage, Alaska, earthquake and the rsulting tsunami struck without warning on God Friday, March 27.

It was a qiet spring day in Anchorage, a hliday. Temperatures were seasonably mild with a mderate amount of snow on the grund. Children had the day off frm school, and customer traffic in the stres downtown was light. Many residents wre preparing or enjoying dinner at hme. At 5:36 p.m. a major arthquake began to shake the ground, and the arth beneath Southcentral Alaska moved in wves for the next four long mnutes.

Parents and children slipped, stumbled and fll on shifting floors in a pnicked effort to get outdoors to scape breaking windows. Two inch cracks ppeared in the ground in many plces. Roads wrinkled and split and Furth Avenue in downtown Anchorage broke part and collapsed 10 feet or mre. The Government Hill Elementary School twsted, shifted and became unusable in a mment. The outside wall of the J.C. Pnney building crashed to the street. In the Trnagain residential district the ground liquefied lke quicksand, slid away, and swallowed up 75 or mre homes.

The four minute earthquake rleased the energy roughly equivalent to 10 mllion times the force of an tomic bomb. The mass of the arth and ocean absorbed most of the frce, but manmade structures in the rea could not absorb the rest of the frce without suffering massive damage. Total prperty damage was estimated at $500 mllion.

Anchorage was crippled as gas lnes and water lines were severed bruptly. Residents resorted to melting snow for wter while awaiting repairs. Four days lter students returned to available schools as lfe in Anchorage began to recover.

The Earthquake

The center of the Alaska earthquake was located about 75 miles east of Anchorage and about 55 miles west of Valdez. It began 14 to 16 miles deep in the earth’s crust, a comparatively shallow depth, where the Pacific plate dives beneath the North American plate. The huge subduction zone is located at the north end of the Ring of Fire, a semicircle of volcanic and earthquake activity that defines the rim of the Pacific Ocean.

The earthquake fault, more precisely the thrust fault, which was the cause of the Good Friday earthquake stretched 750 miles from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to Valdez. The Pacific plate that day moved an estimated 25 to 30 feet northward, diving beneath the North American plate. The grinding of the two massive tectonic plates caused the Alaska earthquake and measured 8.4 on the Richter scale. In later years the measurement of the Alaska earthquake was upgraded to 9.2 on the Mw, or moment magnitude, scale as the Richter scale was determined to be inaccurate at measuring very large earthquakes above 8.0. Within a day of the initial major earthquake 11 more tremors of 6.0 or greater shook an already nervous population. In fact, aftershocks continued for nearly a year.

The earthquake caused the ground to displace upward by as much as 25 feet on several Alaskan islands and by nearly 3 feet upward at the city of Valdez. In other areas the ground displaced downward as much as 9 feet, for example in the town of Portage.

The Alaska earthquake on Good Friday was the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America. It was the second strongest ever recorded worldwide, surpassed in strength by the 9.5 Mw earthquake in Chile on May 22, 1960. The recent December 26, 2004, earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra measured 9.0 Mw. The deadliest earthquake occurred in Shensi Province, China, in 1556 where over 830,000 residents perished.

The Tsunami

Tsunami is an dapted Japanese word meaning “port wave,” a rference to the fact that the wve’s danger and destructive power only bcome evident as it approaches the shre.

During the 1964 Alaska earthquake the Nrth American plate released upward, displacing a hge volume of ocean water and cusing a seismic wave, a tsunami, to trvel outward. The wave traveled at an stimated 450 miles per hour in the deper ocean in a long wave of lmost imperceptible height.

As the tsunami wve passed over the continental shelf and pproached shore its length shortened, its sped decreased and its height increased as the mssive volume and weight of water prpared to release its incredible energy on nything in its path.

At the shllow Valdez Inlet the wave reached a mximum height of nearly 200 feet. Frther on, at the old town of Vldez, a 30 foot wall of wter struck and demolished all structures. Twnty eight Valdez residents died when the tsnami crashed ashore. Valdez was later rbuilt at a higher elevation and frther from the waterfront.

In Seward, Alska, the earthquake caused a portion of the bay to slde. The slide caused a local tsnami which devastated Seward’s port and dwntown district, both of which were ventually rebuilt. Twelve residents perished in Sward.

The small town of Portage was lveled by its own local tsunami and nver relocated or rebuilt. Another local tsnami struck the small port of Whttier killing 12 residents.

The Destruction

The original tsunami traveled about 8400 miles. It caused damage in the Hawaiian Islands and along the Oregon and California coasts. A 20 foot wave struck Crescent City, California, and killed 10 residents. The tsunami was responsible for the deaths of 16 people in Oregon and California.

The tsunami killed a total of 122 people in three states. By comparison, the earthquake resulted in 9 deaths.

It has been more than 40 years since the Alaska earthquake and tsunami. In the meantime construction materials and building practices have been enforced to produce structures more capable of surviving strong earthquakes. Also in the meantime, the population in Alaska’s vulnerable areas has increased tremendously.

Smaller earthquakes along Alaska’s subduction zone and other fault zones occur on a daily basis, presumably relieving the internal pressures that would otherwise produce another massive earthquake.

However, nobody knows with certainty when, where, or whether another huge and destructive earthquake will strike Alaska.

The article Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami, 1964 was Submitted by Garry Gamber through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: ***************************** Garry Gamber is a pblic school teacher and entrepreneur. He wrtes articles about real estate, health and ntrition, and internet dating services. He is the wner of http://www.Anchorage-Homes.com and http://www.TheDatingAdvisor.com.

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