This story has been updated with information about new quakes and magnitude changes.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Federal officials issued a tsunami watch for California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii following an early morning earthquake off the coast of Alaska that measured 7.9 magnitude on the Richter Scale.
The quake occurred at 1:31 a.m. California time, according to the US Geological Survey.
It was centered 161 miles southeast of Chiniak, Alaska, and 357 miles south of Anchorage, at a depth of about 6 miles, south of the Aleutian trench, the survey said.
Originally the quake was reported as an 8.2-magnitude quake, but downgraded to 7.9 magnitude less than an hour after it occurred.
That main quake was followed within an hour by several smaller by still significant quakes measuring 4.6-magnitude, 3.8, 4.7, 5.0 and 4.6, most of them centered southeast of Kodiak, Alaska, according to the US Geological Survey.
Within minutes of the 7.9-magnitude quake, the US Tsunami Warning System began to issue alerts about the possibility that a tsunami had been generated by the quake.
Those alerts were followed minutes later by the issuance of a tsunami warning for areas in British Columbia, Southeast Alaska, southern Alaska and the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands.
At the same time, a tsunami watch was issued for the entire coast of California, including San Francisco Bay, along with the coasts of Oregon and Washington, and for the state of Hawaii, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
If a tsunami is generated, the agencies said it could reach Crescent City by 5:20 a.m., Fort Bragg by 5:25 a.m., Monterey by 5:55 a.m., San Francisco by 6:20 a.m., Santa Barbara by 6:35 a.m., Los Angeles by 6:50 a.m. and Oceanside by 7:05 a.m.
By 2:45 a.m., more than 1,400 shake reports had been submitted to the US Geological Survey. Reports came primarily from Alaska but also from Washington, British Columbia and the Yukon.
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Tsunami watch issued for West Coast following 7.9-magnitude Gulf of Alaska quake
- Elizabeth Larson
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