A reported 7.5 magnitude earthquake off the Alaska Peninsula on Monday prompted tsunami warnings for a vast swath of communities, leading some schools to evacuate and send students to higher ground.
JUNEAU, Alaska — A reported 7.5 magnitude earthquake off the Alaska Peninsula on Monday prompted tsunami warnings for a vast swath of communities, leading some schools to evacuate and send students to higher ground. Raynelle Gardner, a secretary at Sand Point School in the Aleutians East Borough School District, said things are hectic because “this is an evacuation point.” Some schools in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District were evacuating to higher ground, the district said on Twitter. Public safety officials in King Cove sent out an alert urging residents in the coastal area to move inland to higher ground. The tsunami warning was issued by the National Tsunami Warning Center, following an earthquake off Sand Point, Alaska. The size of the quake was originally reported to have been a magnitude of 7.4, but has been revised to a 7.5, said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He said an earthquake of this size, in this area, is not a surprise. “This is an area where the Pacific Plate is subducting underneath the North American Plate.
