Quake Shakes the Big Island

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The Pacific Tsunami Center reported a preliminary magnitude of 6.5, while the U.S. Geological Survey gave a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 as a strong earthquake shook Hawaii. The jolting caused a landslide that blocked a major highway and wide spread power outages. Governor Linda Lingle issued a disaster declaration for the entire state.

The quake hit at 7:07 a.m. local time, 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua Kona, a town on the west coast of Hawaii Island.

Officials said there was no risk of a Pacific-wide tsunami, but there was a possibility of significant wave activity in Hawaii.

Pam’s House Blend writes, “One of the things I am noticing in the reporting on cable news so far is that they are relying heavily on information coming from bloggers who are posting about conditions by hooking up their laptops to their cell phones to transmit.”

Lisa writes, “My dad live's just about on the beach and I haven't heard from him at all. He's very resourceful, so I'm sure he's ok. But I still worry. Will keep trying to get hold of you guys.”

Chick Rawker says, “We were up early because we were still on Pacific time when we started to feel the shaking. I told Mark to move away from the patio and I got underneath the kitchen counter. Our power went out right away so there was no way to get any information. We felt another aftershock and just kind of hung out for a bit. Around 8, I went downstairs to the resort help desk (phones were dead) and they said that they had no idea when power would be restored.”

Rebecca writes, “I was asleep and then my bed starting shaking and my windows were moving. My a.c. unit sounded like it was going to fall out of the window. Crazy eh?”

Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain and the Huffington Post