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Alaska Earthquake Reaches 5.1 Near Fairbanks

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Earthquakes in Alaska are giving locals a good shaking. This weekend, the biggest one reached a 5.1 magnitude, and even landed its own Associated Press report. The event happened Saturday night, 7:06 P.M. Alaska Daylight Time, 43 miles northwest of Fairbanks, and there was no damage.

This earthquake wasn’t the only one to hit Alaska this weekend. The Alaska Earthquake Information Center recorded 545 other Earthquakes since the 5.1 to 1:20 A.M. Monday morning. Although most were minor, a few, according to the Fairbanks News-Miner, were noteworthy. Three others—a 3.49 quake at 12:10 A.M., a 4.19 quake at 4:25 A.M., and a 4.08 quake at 1:58 P.M.—also made the news yesterday. State Seismologist Michael West said theses were part of the 200 plus aftershocks of the larger 5.1 quake.

However, 5.1 is probably as big as it’s going to get. “At this time there’s no evidence to suggest that this is part of a larger sequence or there’s something larger to come,” West said. “That said, it always remains a slim possibility following an earthquake like this.”

Locals on Twitter are already posting the usual memes about the subject:

According to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center, the state experiences about 22,000 earthquakes each year. Alaska was also the site of the second largest earthquake ever recorded, a 9.2 in 1964 that killed 132 people. For this reason, Alaska takes the threat of earthquakes seriously.

In June, a 7.9 earthquake in Alaska off the coast of the Aleutian Islands prompted a tsunami warning. When the aftershocks did not escalate, officials called off the warning, assuming the threat had passed.

For the moment it had, but it looks like the ground will always be shaking in Alaska.

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