On November 30th, a powerful quake  hit Anchorage, the most populous city in Alaska.

   The seism began around 12:29 p.m. and reached a magnitude of 7.2, which is a really strong force. The initial shock was followed by more than 3,000 aftershocks rated between a magnitude of 4 to 5.

   Kristin Dosset, a resident of Anchorage, said that it was the biggest quake she ever felt in her 37 years of living in the region. “It shook like I have never felt anything shake before”.

   Michael West, the Alaska state seismologist, said that this earthquake has been felt up to 400 miles outside of Anchorage.

   Grocery stores products  fell from their shelves and roads were fast bucked with passing cars. When a room started to shake from side to side in court, the frightened attorneys scurried unders desks, trying to find protection.

   A lot of damage was reported, according to the US Geological Survey such as ripped open roads and multiple broken buildings near Anchorage. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured. If they are wounded, it’s either because they rushed under a table to hide or because a random object fell on them, nothing more serious.

   Plus, Jodie Hettrick, the Anchorage Fire Department’s chief, affirmed that neither his department nor the police station received reports of missing people. Actually, the situation seems worse than it really is.

   Anchorage is a region where quakes occur regularly, that’s why the population is ready to this eventuality. “We know we have to be prepared because we’re never impervious to earthquakes or the weather” said Ethan Berkowitz, Anchorage’s mayor.

54 years earlier, a quake that lasted four minutes strongly hit the northernmost US state. It reached a magnitude of 9,2 and the coast has then been struck by a tsunami. Those two catastrophes made in total around 260 deaths. Nowadays, this temblor is known as “The Great Alaskan Earthquake”. After this terrible seism, Alaska has been struck by others small tremors, but they were not really important, this is why the quake that occurred on November 30th was called the “most significant earthquake since 1964”.

Written by: Julia Labbé

Edited by: Jessica Turmel, Laurie Pronovost, Alice Gagnon, Madeline Ratté and  Évelyne Tremblay