The Great Alaska earthquake struck at 5:36 p.m. Alaska Standard Time on March 27, 1964. The shaking lasted for more than four minutes, launching several deadly tsunamis and triggering killer landslides. The earthquake also transformed geology, because it revealed that oceanic plates are shoved under continents. This was one of the keys that unlocked the theory of plate tectonics.
Of the 131 people killed during the earthquake, 119 died in tsunamis. Most were killed by tsunamis triggered by underwater landslides, not by the earthquake-induced tsunami.
