ANCHORAGE, ALASKA ? A major earthquake rocked a sparsely populated area of interior Alaska early Sunday afternoon, damaging supports to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and opening 6-foot cracks in highways and roads.

The magnitude 7.9 quake, centered 90 miles south of Fairbanks, was strongly felt in Anchorage about 270 miles to the south. It hit at 1:13 p.m. Alaska Standard Time (4:13 p.m. CST), said Bruce Turner of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.

“It shook for a good 30 seconds,” Turner said. It did not generate a tsunami, he said.

Only one injury was reported; a 76-year-old woman in Mentasta broke her arm after slipping on stairs, State Trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson said.

Support structures were damaged on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, but the pipeline itself was intact, said Mike Heatwole, spokesman for the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

The quake triggered a detection system, and operators manually shut down the pipeline about 2 p.m., Heatwole said.

Repair crews were working to reduce stress on the pipeline. “We’ll also be mobilizing several additional crews at first light,” Heatwole said.

Heatwole said company officials should know by midmorning today how long it will take to restart the pipeline. He did not know whether North Slope crude oil deliveries would be disrupted.

Numerous roads developed wide cracks, including the Alaska Highway near Northway, 256 miles southeast of Fairbanks.

The Richardson Highway, which parallels the trans-Alaska pipeline between Valdez and Fairbanks, was closed near Paxson after gaps opened that were 2 to 6 feet wide and 5 feet deep, Wilkinson said. About 20 miles north, the ground on one side of the highway had dropped more than 2 feet.

A rescue worker stands by a crack in the Parks Highway near Healy, Alaska, caused by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake. The temblor Sunday wrecked roads, toppled fuel tanks and damaged some supports on the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

The Alaska Railroad halted trains immediately after the earthquake. Trains were delayed about three hours until after track and bridges were inspected, said evening chief dispatcher Donald Jubb.

Fuel tanks were knocked over in Slana, a village with no electric utility; families use diesel fuel to power generators.

Jay Capps, who owns a small grocery store midway between Tok and Glennallen, said he felt a low-level shaking for 15 or 20 seconds before the quake hit.

“It shook so bad you could not stand up on the front porch,” Capps said. “It sounded like the trees were breaking roots under the ground.”

He said nearly everything fell off store shelves. “My store smells like liquid smoke, picante sauce and mayonnaise,” he said.

Moderate earthquakes also shook the U.S. Midwest, Indonesia and Pakistan earlier Sunday, but the activity is not related nor unusual, said Waverly Person, geophysicist at U.S. Geological Survey.

“On any given day, we located about 50 earthquakes throughout the world,” Person said. “This to us is pretty normal.”

He said the death toll from an Italian quake last week may have made more people notice the quake activity.

“They begin to think all of this adds up, but it doesn’t,” Person said.

Italy’s grief

On Sunday in Italy, the town of San Giuliano di Puglia conducted a mass funeral for 29 earthquake victims, including the 26 children and a teacher who were crushed when this village’s school collapsed.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and his wife, Franca, arrived for the service under a tent at the outskirts of the now-evacuated town. The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Pier Ferdinando Casini, embraced the town’s mayor, whose daughter was among the nine first-graders, the entire class, who perished, along with 17 schoolmates.

Photos of smiling children were placed on the coffins surrounded by a thicket of white flowers.

Opening a criminal probe, authorities have questioned why the 49-year-old school was practically the only structure in the town to collapse in the magnitude-5.4 temblor.

A quake of such intensity isn’t usually strong enough to knock down a building that has been built or reinforced to meet modern earthquake standards.