Today: October 23, 2002 at 6:20:24 PDT

Strong Earthquake Jolts Alaska

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PALMER, Alaska- A strong earthquake struck deep underground near Denali National Park early Wednesday, rocking much of Alaska and waking people as far as 350 miles away, experts at the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or widespread damage.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.5, hit at 3:27 a.m., jarring residents in Fairbanks, 85 miles north of the epicenter, and in Anchorage, 170 miles to the southwest, seismologist Bruce Turner said. Telephone lines to the Denali National Park ranger station, about 27 miles from the epicenter, were dead.

The observatory was deluged with calls about the quake, which occurred on an active fault about 25 miles beneath the surface, Turner said.

In Healy, just north of the park, Grandview Bed and Breakfast co-owner Shelly Acteson said the quake knocked just about everything off her walls and shelves and was frighteningly loud.

"Usually they kind of roll, you can kind of hear them coming," she said. "This one sounded like it was kind of mad - boom, boom, boom."

Kathie White, co-owner of the Backwoods Lodge outside Cantwell, a hamlet of about 200 people 36 miles from the epicenter, said the quake roused the residents and shook items off her shelves but no one was hurt.

"Just a good shaker," she said.

The quake was too far from water to generate a tsunami, or seismic sea wave, but it was felt as far as 350 miles from the epicenter, Turner said.

The magnitude of an earthquake reflects an analysis of seismic waves and the amount of earth slippage over the area of the fault. An earthquake of 6 can cause severe damage and a magnitude 7 quake is considered major and capable of widespread, heavy damage.

The "Good Friday" earthquake in Alaska that left 131 people dead in 1964 measured 8.5 on the now-abandoned Richter scale - 9.2 by the current measurement system - and was centered in Prince William Sound near Anchorage.