All tsunami warnings, watches and advisories were lifted for Alaska communities Wednesday morning, after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula Tuesday afternoon.
A tsunami warning had been in effect for communities along the Aleutian Chain, including Atka, Adak and the Pribilofs along with Hawaii and parts of the U.S. West Coast.
The Tsunami Warning Center said that waves of a foot or under had been observed in communities across the Aleutians, including Unalaska, St. Paul and Nikolski. The largest wave in Alaska, at 2.7 feet, hit Adak Island at 11:21 Tuesday night, according to the center.
“A tsunami did occur,” said Dave Snider, a tsunami warning coordinator with the center. “A tsunami is not just one wave, it's a series of powerful waves. And so it's entirely possible that the first wave is not the largest and may not be the last.”
Snider said there may still be some unusual currents and water levels in coastal communities over the next several days.
“Don't be surprised if that happens, and be extra cautious in places that you're familiar with. Every community knows their coastline better than anybody else,” he said.
In Adak, City Manager Breck Craig and most of the community gathered to wait for the wave at the Bering Hill Chapel on Tuesday evening. The town’s village public safety officer, Mike Lejarzar, peered out to Kuluk Bay with his binoculars, looking for any signs of a tsunami.
A wave was forecasted to arrive at 5:40 p.m., but Craig saw no sign of one.
Craig said that by then, most of the town had evacuated to the chapel, which acts as the city’s tsunami shelter.
“We sounded the tsunami siren and collected everybody up and got everybody up here,” Craig said. “We're all just kind of hanging out, waiting for what they're thinking is a one foot or three foot wave maybe to come in.”
Craig said everyone had gone home by about 7 p.m., but the city would stay vigilant and watch any updates over the next 15 hours. Craig said people in Adak didn’t feel the initial magnitude 8.8 earthquake or any of its aftershocks. And thankfully, he said, they haven’t found any damage.
“We checked the pier. We checked the small boat harbor. We're still in the process of just checking things, just to be double sure,” Craig said. “Even small waves, you know, can do damage. So far, we're not finding anything.”
In Atka, one of the westernmost communities in the Aleutian Chain, Mayor Luke Snigaroff said that no wave had materialized as of 6:12 p.m., but that the roughly two dozen residents in the Unangax̂ village had evacuated to high ground.
“We’re still under warning,” Snigaroff said in a telephone interview. “Everybody’s up at the water treatment plant or the quarantine shelter.”
A magnitude of 8.8 would make this one of the 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded worldwide, and the largest in more than a decade.
KUCB’s Maggie Nelson and Theo Greenly contributed reporting.