North America's largest earthquake rattled Alaska 50 years ago, on March 27, 1964, killing 15 people and creating a tsunami that killed 124 more from Alaska to California. The magnitude 9.2 quake hit at 5:30 p.m on Good Friday, turning soil beneath parts of Anchorage into jelly and collapsing buildings that were not engineered to withstand the force of colliding continental plates. This earthquake remains the second largest earthquake ever recorded in the world. after the magnitude 9.5 earthquake in Chile in 1960. The duration of the rupture lasted approximately 4 minutes.