Crews rush to fix quake damage

ANCHORAGE - Aftershocks continued to rattle Alaska's Interior today as crews worked to repair highways left with huge gaps from a powerful earthquake that rocked the state.

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The magnitude 7.9 quake hit at 1:13 p.m. Sunday. It was centered in a sparsely populated area 90 miles south of Fairbanks and was felt throughout much of the state and in locations as far away as New Orleans.

The quake cracked Alaska highways and roads, triggered rock slides, shook houses, knocked over fuel tanks and prompted the closure of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Crews with the state Department of Transportation worked through the night to make temporary repairs to roads, some of which had gaps up to 8 feet deep and 6 feet wide. By this morning, officials had reopened the Parks Highway, the main road between Fairbanks and Anchorage, and Richardson Highway, which parallels part of the oil pipeline.

Only one minor injury was reported - a woman who suffered a broken arm when she fell down some stairs as she tried to leave her home.

Engineers were working today to assess damage to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, which carries North Slope crude to the port of Valdez. The pipe did not break and no oil spilled, but the quake damaged some of the brackets that hold the 48-inch pipe above ground, leaving the pipeline suspended. Company officials expected to know by later in the day when the pipeline could be restarted.

The earthquake occurred on the Denali Fault and had a shallow depth, said John Lahr, geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. Shallow earthquakes generally are felt over a wider area.

"We expected this would have surface rupture that geologists could see on the ground and study," he said.

The worst reports of damage were along a two-mile stretch of the Tok Cutoff, which leads from the Alaska Highway to Southcentral highways connected to Anchorage. Travelers found hundreds of yards of 6-foot openings in the road and numerous rock slides.

Residents of the area said the quake knocked over fuel tanks.

In Slana, which has no electric utility, families use diesel fuel to power generators. Sharrel Webster said without help in setting her family's fuel tanks upright, she was likely to lose food in her freezer.

A semitrailer the family uses for storage was pushed over.

"It's laying on its side," she said. The well casing on the family's well lifted 2 inches out of the ground and cracks opened up so wide that she could stick her hand in them.

Jay Capps, who owns a small grocery store near Tok, said he felt a low-level shaking for 15 or 20 seconds and then two "good-sized pops" before the earthquake hit. He and two other people ran from the store.

"You actually felt the earthquake coming," Capps said. "It shook so bad you could not stand up on the front porch."

Capps said nearly everything fell off store shelves.

"My store smells like liquid smoke, picante sauce and mayonnaise," he said.

Randy Schmoker, a metal worker in Porcupine Creek on the Tok Cutoff, was in his shop when he felt the ground move.

"I thought, 'Oh good, an earthquake,' and then it got worse and worse," he said.

The quake tipped over a band saw and other heavy tools, his 300-gallon outside fuel tank and moved a 150-pound anvil 20 feet across the floor.

He stepped outside and saw the tops of trees whipping 20 to 30 feet back and forth. He said he expected the ground to crack open after a series of 8-inch waves spread out before him.

"They looked like ocean waves," he said.

The earthquake was the second major episode in Interior Alaska in the past two weeks. A magnitude 6.7 earthquake centered about 30 miles southeast of Denali National Park hit at 3:27 a.m. Oct. 23.

Aftershocks continued to rattle Alaska today and officials with the Alaska Earthquake Information Center in Fairbanks said residents could expect to feel aftershocks for the next several days before the magnitude decreases substantially. The largest aftershock measured 5.1 and four others measured 4.5 to 4.7. All of the aftershocks were centered in roughly the same area of Interior Alaska.