Students from North Carolina are all too familiar with hurricanes yielding power outages and downed trees, but 13 students studying in Hawaii experienced a new kind of natural disaster causing similar destruction when an earthquake struck in their general vicinity Sunday morning.

The earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.7, hit 12 miles north-northwest of Kailua Kona at 7:07 a.m., causing a landslide and power outages across the state, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Kailua Kona is on the West Coast of the Big Island.

According to the National Student Exchange office, 13 N.C. State students are currently studying at two of 10 University of Hawaii campuses.

Spencer Griffith, a senior in business and marketing education, who has been studying at the University of Hawaii at Hilo since August, said he felt the earthquake.

“I felt it. I think we are about 40 or 50 miles from it — straight across,” Griffith said. “There wasn’t that much damage — we lost power.”

He added that his family in North Carolina called numerous times following the earthquake.

“My phone didn’t work at all Sunday. Everyone back at home was trying to call me, I had 10 different voicemails,” he said. “Apparently they made it sound pretty bad [in North Carolina].”

Griffith said he has never experienced an earthquake before Sunday’s as he has lived in North Carolina his entire life.

Jessie Watson, a sophomore in biology, said she also felt the earthquake from her residence at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

“We definitely felt the earthquake. Hilo didn’t get as much of the damage as other areas like Kona and Waimea where schools were closed,” she said. “We weren’t affected too much by it. It was a pretty strong earthquake though. There were a lot of rock slides and landslides because there are a lot of cliffs. It is very dangerous to go to the beach or be on the highway.”

Watson said she is studying in Hilo for the entirety of the school year.

Daniel Almirall, a sophomore in textile engineering, is studying at University of Hawaii at Manoa on the island of Waikiki for the semester.

Almirall said the repercussions from the earthquake were also minimal where he resides.

“The big island definitely got it the worst,” he said. “We just got the smaller one that radiated outwards.”

However, Almirall did feel the earthquake from his location.

“We evacuated for the one at [7:07 a.m.] — definitely the one that was the strongest was the one around 7 [a.m.],” he said. “That was the one that woke me and was shaking my whole room. I’m on the seventh floor and it definitely shook the windows. I didn’t know what it was — I’ve never been in an earthquake before.”

According to Almirall, power outages caused the majority of the panic.

“All the power was out, it was crazy,” he said. “No one really knew what to do because this is a huge tourist place. Originally they said the power could be out for two to three days. Everyone was preparing for [a] huge blackout.”

Like Griffith, Almirall said contacting home after the earthquake was no easy feat.

“All the lines were busy because so many people were calling,” he said. “Then my phone died because there was no power to charge it. I didn’t really talk to anyone until Monday when I could actually charge my phone for a while.”

Jonathan Page, a sophomore in civil engineering currently studying at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was not in touch with his family for a different reason.

“I woke up at five that morning to go surfing,” Page said. “I was on the water at that time so I did not feel [the earthquake].”

Oblivious to the earthquake, Page continued surfing while his family tried to contact him.

“I was out on the water,” he said. “Some of my family tried to get in touch with me but I didn’t get it for a few hours.”