‘Fast and furious’ 5.3 magnitude quake jolts Tanana, Fairbanks and other Interior towns

Tanana resident Cynthia Erickson awoke to her first surprise Saturday morning, when she looked outside and saw winter's first snowfall on the ground.

She got her second surprise after she laid back down for more rest and the bed started jolting, like her house was an "off-balance washing machine."

"It was really erratic and really hard shaking, oh man! I started screaming to my husband. I was like, 'Earthquake! Call the kids!' " she said.

The "moderate" 5.3 magnitude temblor at 8:57 Saturday was widely felt in Fairbanks and across the Interior, according to preliminary data from the Alaska Earthquake Center. 

But it really rocked and rolled in the village of Tanana, about a dozen miles west of the epicenter. The earthquake was triggered 10 miles below ground, about 120 miles west of Fairbanks.

"I'm running around and things are falling off the wall," framed portraits, a carved wooden airplane, jackets that slid off a chair, said Erickson.

The aisles of the small general store downstairs that she and her husband run, Tanana Commercial Company, were scattered with fallen merchandise.

"Paper towels, tissues, soap, cans of soup, bottles of antifreeze," she said, though nothing appeared broken except maybe the taco shells.

There were no reports of damage from the earthquake, according to state seismologists.

Erickson said she hadn't heard of reports of damage in Tanana, though everyone was chattering about the temblor on social media.

She'll learn more later, she said.

"When I open the store (at noon), everyone will be yacking away about what happened," said Erickson, 55.

State seismologist Michael West said there have been unusual earthquakes in Alaska this year.

"It appears to just be a coincidence," he said.

A surprisingly big 6.4 temblor struck the North Slope not far from the village of Kaktovik in August. Other quakes occurred in unusual locations, including Tuesday in the Bering Sea west of Hooper Bay village, site of a 4.9 quake.

[6.4 earthquake hits northeast Alaska. It was the strongest quake ever recorded in the region.]

Saturday's quake near Tanana was not unusual in the region where it occurred, West said.

"It's well expected in this area," said West. "We have events of this size every few years, but it certainly got a lot of people's attention."

Erickson, who has lived in Tanana about three decades, said it was the biggest shaker she'd ever felt there, perhaps because it was so close to the village.

"It was fast and furious," she said.

It lasted less than 30 seconds. It was so strong she wrongly assumed "the big one" had struck Southcentral Alaska, and Tanana was feeling an aftershock.

"It felt like it was right under our house," she said.

The quake was also felt in North Pole, Healy and Manley Hot Springs, according to reports received by the center.

Aftershocks are expected, the center said.