Great Land of Alaska

Downtown Anchorage

The north side of 4th Avenue has sunk about 11 feet (3.4 meters).

(Picture credit: UPI)

Downtown Anchorage

Several pedestrians duck out of the way to avoid debris from the collapsing JC Penny building.

(Picture credit: Wide World)

Anchorage

Huge cracks have broken up this northwest Anchorage neighborhood.

(Picture credit: Stan Wayman for Life)

Turnagain Heights

Sandy ground liquefied in the shaking, causing an 8,000 foot by 1,200 foot (2,438 meter by 366 meter) block of land to slide into the waters of Knik Arm.

(Picture credit: Richard Schlecht—Steve McCutcheon)

Seward Highway

Split in half, this portion of the Seward Highway near Portage is impassible.

(Picture credit: Earthquake Engineering Research Library, California Institute of Technology)

Seward

As if the damage from the quake and resulting tsunami wasn't enough, Seward was further damaged by oil tank fires lit by the earthquake.

(Picture credit: U.S. Army Crops of Engineers Photo)

Seward train yard

Seward's train yard lies in ruins, victim of the killer tsunami that struck in 1964.

(Picture credit: Stan Wayman for Life)

Sherman Glacier

The earthquake caused the large, pointed peak in the upper right corner of the leftmost picture (subsequently named Shattered Peak) to shear off, covering three square miles (4.8 square km) of Sherman Glacier with rubble.

(Picture credit: U.S. Geological Survey)

Downtown Anchorage

Today, you'd never know that this area was once ripped in half.

Seward Highway

The Seward Highway near portage as it appears today.

Portage

Nearly destroyed in the 1964 quake, the old townsite of Portage was abandoned. The few remaining buildings, further damaged by time and the elements, are slowly disappearing among the new marshy growth of what was once dry ground. Trees that once grew here are now now a bunch of dead trunks, killed by the marsh that was created when the land sunk.