When did the 1964 Alaska earthquake begin?
More than 90% of the deaths in Alaska during the 1964 earthquake and subsequent tsunamis were due to the tsunamis. The potential death and devastation from tsunamis make the coastal areas of Alaska extremely dangerous and necessitate continuous 24 hour earthquake monitoring for each day of the year by a full time staff at the West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center located in Palmer. The 1964 earthquake and tsunami deaths alerted State and Federal officials to the need for a facility to respond to the need for timely and effective tsunami warnings and earthquake information for Alaska and the northern Pacific. In 1967 and as a result of the earthquake and tsunamis, the West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning System (WC&ATWC) was established in Palmer to mitigate the tsunami hazard (Sokolowski, 1990). The primary mission of the WC&ATWC is to provide tsunami warnings for Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in Canada. A secondary mission of the Center is to provide
The 1964 Alaska earthquake, also known as the Great Alaska Earthquake, began at 5:36 P.M. AST on Friday, March 27, 1964. Across south-central Alaska, ground fissures, collapsing buildings, and tsunamis directly caused about 131 deaths. This Alaskan earthquake is also known as the Good Friday Earthquake because it occurred during that Christian holy day. Lasting nearly five minutes, it was the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history, and the third most powerful ever measured by seismograph. It had a moment magnitude of 9.2 and an 8.4 to 8.6 on the Richter magnitude scale. The number of deaths from the earthquake totalled 131; 115 in Alaska and 16 in Oregon and California. The death toll was extrememly small for a quake of this magnitude due to low population density, the time of day and the fact that it was a holiday, and the type of material used to construct many buildings (wood).
