<P> Two types of tsunamis were produced by this subduction zone earthquake . There was a tectonic tsunami produced in addition to about 20 smaller and local tsunamis . These smaller tsunamis were produced by submarine and subaerial landslides and were responsible for the majority of the tsunami damage . Tsunami waves were noted in over 20 countries, including Peru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Mexico, and Antarctica . The largest tsunami wave was recorded in Shoup Bay, Alaska, with a height of about 220 ft (67 m). Tremors were detected in water wells in Australia . </P> <P> As a result of the earthquake, 139 people are believed to have died: Fifteen died as a result of the earthquake itself, 106 died from the subsequent tsunami in Alaska, 5 died from the tsunami in Oregon, and 13 died from the tsunami in California . The quake was a reported XI on the modified Mercalli Intensity scale "indicating major structural damage, and ground fissures and failures". Property damage was estimated at about $116 million ($0.70 billion in 2016 dollars). It is likely that the toll would have been much higher had the quake not occurred after 5 pm on Good Friday . </P> <P> Most damage occurred in Anchorage, 75 mi (120 km) northwest of the epicenter . Anchorage was not hit by tsunamis, but downtown Anchorage was heavily damaged, and parts of the city built on sandy bluffs overlying "Bootlegger Cove clay" near Cook Inlet, most notably the Turnagain neighborhood, suffered landslide damage . The neighborhood lost 75 houses in the landslide, and the destroyed area has since been turned into Earthquake Park . The Government Hill school suffered from the Government Hill landslide, leaving it in two jagged, broken pieces . Land overlooking the Ship Creek valley near the Alaska Railroad yards also slid, destroying many acres of buildings and city blocks in downtown Anchorage . Most other areas of the city were only moderately damaged . The 60 - foot (18 m) concrete control tower at Anchorage International Airport was not engineered to withstand earthquake activity and collapsed, killing William George Taylor, the Federal Aviation Agency air traffic controller on duty in the tower cab at the time the earthquake began . </P> <P> One house on W. 10th Avenue suffered peripheral damage, but only one block away the recently completed (and still unoccupied) Four Seasons Building on Ninth Avenue collapsed completely, with the concrete elevator shafts sticking up out of the rubble like a seesaw . </P>

There were two reasons for tsunamis in the alaska earthquake of 1964. what were they