The rails in this approach to a railroad bridge near the head of Turnagain Arm, southeast of Anchorage, were torn from their ties and buckled laterally by movement of the riverbanks during a massive earthquake on March 27, 1964. The bridge was also compressed and developed a hump from vertical buckling. #

A photographer looks over wreckage as smoke rises in the background from burning oil storage tanks in Valdez, Alaska, on March 29, 1964, two days after the earthquake struck. #

Downtown Anchorage, the collapse of Fourth Avenue near C Street, due to a landslide caused by the earthquake. Before the shock, the sidewalk on the left was at street level with the one on the right. #

The dock area, a tank farm, and railroad facilities in Whittier, Alaska were severely damaged by surge-waves developed by underwater landslides in Passage Canal, on March 27, 1964. The waves inundated the area of darkened ground, where the snow was soiled or removed by the waves. #

The waterfront of Seward, Alaska, weeks after the earthquake, looking north. Note the "scalloped" shoreline left by the underwater landslides, the severed tracks in the railroad yard which dangle over the landslide scarp, and the wind row-like heaps of railroad cars and other debris thrown up by the tsunami waves. #

The Four Seasons Apartments in Anchorage was a six-story lift-slab reinforced concrete building which collapsed during the earthquake. The building was under construction, but structurally completed, at the time of the quake. #

An unidentified man sits at a desk beside hi-fi sets moved to the middle of Fourth Avenue in Anchorage on March 31, 1964. The items were moved from a store that was demolished in the earthquake. #

The path of destruction made by the quake in Alaska followed by a tsunami can be seen in this aerial view of Kodiak on March 29, 1964. The wave swept in from the lower left and towards upper right, pushing and smashing everything in its way. #

Chaotic condition of the commercial section of Kodiak following inundation by seismic sea waves. The small boat harbor contained an estimated 160 crab and salmon fishing boats when the waves struck. #

A view of the destruction of Valdez, Alaska. Thirty-one residents died during the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Instability and vulnerability to future tsunamis made the old town site too dangerous to rebuild, so the town was relocated several miles west to more stable ground, and rebuilt. #

Tsunami damage and high-water line at Seward. The tsunami waves washed the snow from the lower slopes of the hillsides, and the height of the highest wave is marked by the sharp "snow line" on the hillside behind and just above the rooftop at left center. #

Support columns punched through the deck of the Twentymile River Bridge, as it collapsed during the earthquake, near Turnagain Arm on Cook Inlet. The adjacent steel railroad bridge survived with only minor damage. #

A wider aerial view of the Turnagain Heights landslide. Most of this area is now a park - you can see it today on Google Maps. #

This highway embankment fissured and spread, cracking down the middle. The road was built on thick deposits of alluvium and tidal estuary mud along Turnagain Arm near Portage. #

With the city under martial law, soldiers patrol a downtown street in Anchorage, Alaska, on March 28, 1964. In background is the wreckage of the five-story J.C. Penney's store at Fifth Avenue and D Street. #

Anchorage small business owners clear salvageable items and equipment from their earthquake-ravaged stores on shattered Fourth Avenue, in the aftermath of the quake. #

The head of the L Street landslide in Anchorage. The land on the left side sank 7 to 10 feet in response to 11 feet of horizontal movement of the lower section of the slide. A number of houses were undercut or tilted by subsidence of the graben. Note also the collapsed Four Seasons Apartment Building and the undamaged three-story reinforced concrete frame building behind it, which are on more stable ground. #

Trees up to 24 inches in diameter and 100 feet above sea level were broken and splintered by the surge wave generated by an underwater landslide in Port Valdez on Prince William Sound. #

This truck was bent around a tree by the surge waves generated by the underwater landslides along the Seward waterfront. The truck was about 32 feet above water level at the time of the earthquake. #