There were no immediate reports of damage in the Alaska Peninsula and the tsunami warning was canceled after the magnitude 7.8 quake offshore created a wave of a less than a foot (30 centimeters).
Residents in some small towns within a hundred miles (160 kilometers) of the quake reported very strong shaking and some shaking was felt more than more than 500 miles (805 kilometers) away in the Anchorage area, said Michael West, Alaska state seismologist.
The tsunami warning prompted coastal residents to evacuate to higher ground, with social media posts showing long lines of people fleeing towns like Homer and Kodiak as tsunami sirens wailed.
Tuesdays quake was more powerful than the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that caused damage in the Anchorage area in November 2018.
More than a dozen aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 or higher were reported immediately after the earthquake, he said from the Alaska Earthquake Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.