It wasn’t long before officials confirmed where the quake had originated: in Alaska, not far from the coastal community of Fox River, roughly 110 miles south of Anchorage — a city of about 300,000 people.
The USGS later detected a smaller 2.6-magnitude aftershock near the epicenter just five minutes after the main quake. Experts estimate an 87% chance of further aftershocks of magnitude 3 or higher in the coming week, with a 12% chance of another magnitude 5 event.
The quake struck along the eastern Aleutian arc — a volatile 1,864-mile chain of islands and underwater trenches stretching from the Gulf of Alaska toward Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, where the Pacific Plate slides beneath the North American Plate.
This geological boundary produces some of the planet’s most powerful seismic activity, including the 1964 Prince William Sound earthquake (magnitude 9.2) — the second largest ever recorded — which devastated Anchorage and triggered a massive Pacific-wide tsunami.
One resident wrote on X: “Good-sized earthquake here in Alaska. I hear it was around Fritz Creek — I felt the rolling, a crack, then a final hard shake.”
Just weeks ago, the state endured a record storm surge when remnants of a typhoon slammed into its northwestern coast, forcing mass air evacuations as coastal villages like Kipnuk and Kwigillingok were swallowed by rising waters.
This is a developing story… Updates to follow.