We went to Earthquake Park, which commemorates the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake that hit Anchorage so hard. Unfortunately there wasn't much to see. I guess I expected to see remnants of houses or other debris, even after so long, but it's all long gone. Now all that's left is a huge cliff where the ground dropped so many feet.
In 1964, Anchorage and South central Alaska were permanently changed by one of the largest quakes to shake North America. The 9.2 earthquake shook for over 4 minutes. The weekend following the quake was punctuated by 55 strong earthquakes, some over 5.0.
The earthquake damaged all major and most secondary roads. Of 204 bridges, 141 were destroyed or damaged. In some areas, the land dropped as much as 13 feet and were flooded.
In the earthquake, coastal communities suffered complete ruin. Besides the waves of the tsunami, there were submarine landslides which caused more waves during or immediately after the quake and were 30-50 eet in height, as high as a large tsunami wave.
We walked about 1/4 mile to the park area.
This picture illustrates how far the land dropped during the earthquake. The park we were at is at the highest point on the left hand side, where now there is a cliff.
You can't see it well, but through the trees, you can see the ground level where the land sank the lowest.
Old pictures of the damage.
City of Anchorage in the distance.
The edge of the cliff where the ground fell.
No comments:
Post a Comment