Update, 3:55 p.m. Monday: The West Coast-Alaska Tsunami Warning Center has downgraded an alert issued in the wake of an 8.0-magnitude earthquake in the Aleutian Islands early Monday afternoon.
The center’s latest advisory is forecasting a minor tsunami, with a maximum wave height of about a foot, along a 900-mile swath of remote islands from Attu in the west to Unimak in the east. For the rest of the West Coast, the advisory is for information only — meaning no threat is forecast. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu said earlier this afternoon that the quake, which struck at 1:53 p.m. PDT near Little Sitkin Island, did not pose a threat to Hawaii. Little Sitkin Island, an unpopulated island dominated by an active volcano, is about 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage and 3,000 miles northwest of San Francisco.
Original post: Federal tsunami forecasters are sizing up a possible threat to the West Coast after an 8.0 earthquake struck Alaska’s Aleutian Islands early Monday afternoon.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake occurred at 1:53 p.m. PDT and was centered near Little Sitkin Island, near the southwestern end of the Aleutians. The USGS puts the depth of the quake at about 70 miles beneath the surface.
The West Coast-Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued alerts for the islands closest to the epicenter and said it’s assessing the threat to the West Coast. Little Sitkin Island is about 3,000 miles northwest of San Francisco.