The largest earthquake there in 20 years, plus at least a dozen aftershocks, shook Hawaii Island’s west coast on Sunday morning. Strong shaking from the magnitude 6.7 temblor, and the 5.8-magnitude aftershock that followed it minutes later, triggered landslides, caused power and communication outages, and damaged structures across the Big Island. No fatalities, however, have been reported. The observatories atop Mauna Kea didn’t escape entirely unscathed. The W. M. Keck Observatory, whose twin 10-meter telescopes are one of the world’s largest, cancelled all observing. Some guiding and pointing systems were affected and must be repaired before observing resumes. The Gemini North Observatory, which houses an 8m telescope near Keck, reports on its website that the telescope clearly shook hard during this event. The telescope appears to have moved with respect to its azimuth track, which rotates the scope along the horizon, but the elevation axis appears OK. The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), also sited on Mauna Kea, hosts a 3.6m optical and infrared telescope. On Monday, the observatory’s website reported that the dome has moved on its track and cannot be rotated at the moment. It is likely that the CFHT might be out of commission for some time.
http://www.keckobservatory.org/recent/entry/earthquake_update_from_w._m._keck_observatory/