7.5 Alaska earthquake poses no tsunami threat to California

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The magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck off the Alaska coast overnight posed a brief tsunami threat to parts of Alaska and Canada but not to California’s coast, officials said.

The temblor was too far north to cause major wave activity in California. Officials issued a tsunami alert for the immediate area but canceled it a few hours later.

There were no reports of damage from the temblor near Craig, Alaska.

The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center later said the waves were too small to pose a threat, reaching just six inches above normal sea level in places such as Sitka and Port Alexander, the Associated Press reported.

‘Initially, in the first 15 to 20 minutes, there might have been a bit of panic,’ Sitka Police Chief Sheldon Schmitt told the AP in a phone interview. But he said things calmed down as the town waited for the all clear.

The temblor struck at midnight Friday (1 a.m. PST Saturday) and was centered about 60 miles west of Craig, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

--A Times staff writer