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USGS
An earthquake
with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 caused minor damage
Wednesday and was widely felt from Anchorage to Fairbanks.
"There
was some small damage in Fairbanks ... some things knocked
from shelves," said Alec Medbery of the Alaska Tsunami
Warning Center.
He said
the quake hit at 1:36 a.m. AST and appeared to be fairly
shallow, about 6 miles beneath the surface. It was centered
about 40 miles west of Denali National Park, 100 miles southwest
of Fairbanks and 190 miles north of Anchorage.
The
park, which features 20,320-foot Mount McKinley, the tallest
peak in North America, is mostly shut down for the winter,
Medbery said.
An earthquake
of magnitude 3.5 can cause slight damage in the local area;
4 can cause moderate damage; 5 considerable damage and 6
severe damage.
The
1964 Good Friday earthquake in Alaska that generated a damaging
seismic sea wave, or tsunami, and killed 131 people has
been estimated at 9.2 magnitude.
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