No damage reported after 5.0 earthquake in Bering Strait

By Laura Robertson
The Alaska Earthquake Center reported 5.0 magnitude earthquake 21 miles south of Little Diomede on Sunday, February 2 around 9 p.m. A second tremor occurred on Monday, Feb. 3 shortly before 8 p.m.
Residents of Wales and Diomede report that they felt the tremors but no damage was reported and no tsunami warning ensued.
Marcia Soolook, who lives in Wales, said that she felt the earthquake “a little bit.”
“I was on the bed, so the bed kind of moved,” said Soolook. She said there had been no damage to the community.  “Even the ice is still good,” said Soolook.
Eric Iyapana, Little Diomede’s mayor, said that while there wasn’t any infrastructure damage from Sunday’s “little shake,” he worried that between the melting permafrost and several small earthquakes, the rocks above the village might shift and become unstable.
“When something like this happens the first thing we do is step out of the house and look up at the rocks above us,” said Iyapana.
He explained that there have been some landslides on the north and south ends of the island, although not near the village itself. He worries that if rocks shifts, pressure will build until there is a sudden landslide near the village. He said that the village wouldn’t know unless a geologist went out to look at it.
“The concern out here is the slides that’s been happening to the north and south of the island. How soon will that start happening closer to the houses and buildings here in the area?” said Iyapana.  
Tribal Coordinator Frances Ozenna said she felt the earthquake shake her two-story house, but no damage occurred. Other residents in Diomede did not feel the tremor because most Diomede homes in are insulated by a thick pack of snow as it had snowed a lot this winter. She echoed the mayor’s concern about the rocks and the need for a professional assessment of their stability. A strong southwest wind blew overnight as well, with gusts up to 55 to 60 knots. Ozenna said if the earthquake would have happened during a different season, the outcome might have been different, too. Rockslides from higher parts of the steep island are always a concern, she said. However, now the rocks are held in place by thick layers of ice and won’t budge.
After the earthquake Diomeders noticed that open leads appeared in the sea ice shows on the north side of Diomede, where it had been solid the previous day.
The Sunday earthquake was one of only three of magnitude 5.0 and above with epicenters in the Bering Strait or Norton Sound in the 21st century, according to historical data from the U.S. Geological Survey. One other hit the Chukchi Sea north of Diomede in 2009, and a third was near Port Clarence in 2011.
“Honestly, it is an unusual earthquake. They’re rare [in the region] and the fact that it is a nine to five is even more rare,” said Elizabeth Nadin, a geologist with the Alaska Earthquake Center. “Not like, unbelievable, but definitely rare.”
There have been numerous other earthquakes with lower magnitudes that hit the region on both the U.S. and Russian sides of the Bering Sea. The Seward Peninsula sees fewer earthquakes than the Aleutians and the Interior, but more than the regions around Bethel and the North Slope.
While Nome and the region are not directly over a fault line, all of Alaska is situated in a place where the Pacific plate rotates slowly against the North American plate, causing earthquakes.
“It’s a little bit of a mystery out there [near Nome],” said Nadin. “There’s a bit of a diffuse seismic zone in that area that has an earthquake from time to time.”
Nadin said that only three people had reported feeling the earthquake but encouraged people in the region to tell Alaska Earthquake Center if they’d felt it.
With reporting by Diana Haecker