Seward waterfront damage

The waterfront at Seward a few months 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 windrow-like heaps of railroad cars and other debris thrown up by the tsunami waves. Many landslides generated by the 1964 earthquake originated beneath, or came to rest within, large bodies of water. The resultant displacement of water by many of these slides produced surge-waves that hit adjacent shorelines with great violence. Such slides and the waves that they generated brought considerable property damage and loss of life to communities and isolated buildings situated on the shores of Prince William Sound and Kenai Lake.