A landslide early Sunday morning in the Endicott Arm area of Alaska near the state’s capital triggered a local tsunami with waves estimated to be up to 15 feet high.
According to the Alaska Earthquake Center, people boating in the Endicott Arm area reported a mysterious local tsunami near Harbor Island.
Three kayakers camping on Harbor Island reported losing most of their gear, but made it back to Juneau safely, the Earthquake Center said.
Waves were estimated to be around 10–15 feet high near Harbor Island.
The National Park Service reported a tsunami of 100 feet scraped trees off the rocky slopes of Sawyer Island.
Ezgi Karasözen, a research scientist at the Earthquake Center, discovered that there was no earthquake detected in the area to cause the tsunami and the area was outside the center’s landslide detection zone.
Karasözen applied the Earthquake Center’s landslide characterization algorithm to data from the seismic stations in the area and found that a massive landslide triggered the tsunami.
“Our initial estimate placed the source near South Sawyer Glacier, with a very large volume, possibly larger than 100 million cubic meters,” Karasözen said.
The Alaska Earthquake Center said this event was possibly the largest landslide and tsunami in Alaska since 2015.
It was detected by seismic stations over 600 miles away, according to the center.
The U.S. Coast Guard flew over the landslide on South Sawyer Glacier and Tracy Arm Fjord.
In the video, debris and dirt lay on the ground, with a visible debris path down the mountainside.
Hours of small-magnitude earthquakes led up to the landslide happening, according to the Earthquake Center.
The center estimated that earthquakes were happening for more than 18 hours before the landslide happened.
The National Weather Service office in Juneau reported no injuries or infrastructure damage from the landslide or tsunami.
Meanwhile, Juneau is preparing for an overflow of a glacial lake associated with the Mendenhall Glacier. Residents are being evacuated in case there is extensive flooding.
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