HUMPTULIPS — Washington state seismologist Anthony Qamar was one of two men killed in a log truck accident on winding U.S. 101 north of Hoquiam, officials said.

Qamar, 62, research associate professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, died in the crash along with Daniel J. Johnson, 46, a University of Puget Sound geophysics professor, UW seismology spokesman Bill Steele said.

Qamar and Johnson were on their way to the Olympic Peninsula to collect instruments and data concerning the "slow-slip" quake that recently occurred off the coast, Steele said.

The scenic road between Hoquiam and Humptulips on the western Olympic Peninsula was closed in both directions for about 8 1/2 hours after the crash.

State Patrol investigators wrote that because of an apparent equipment failure, logs fell off a trailer being pulled by a northbound 1992 Kenworth truck.

Johnson, who was driving a 1998 Saturn, went off the road to try to avoid the hazard but the car was still hit by some of the logs and shoved into timber and brush. Johnson and Qamar were pronounced dead at the scene.

The truck was totaled but the driver, Garland Eugene Massingham, 40, of Centralia, escaped injury.

Steele said Qamar, who joined the Washington faculty in 1983, had been a key scientist among those at the university who study earthquakes and volcanoes. Steele called his death a "huge loss" that has devastated colleagues.

"He was always cheerful, always helping anyone ... always the first to volunteer to take stuff on," Steele said.