Earth Quakes off Northern Vancouver Island

Strong quakes roll off Island

From the Times Colonist January 6, 2008

A series of strong earthquakes rumbled off the northern tip of Vancouver Island yesterday, but the most north Island residents felt was likely a mild shaking.

The two strongest quakes, both measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, hit 225 kilometers west of Port Hardy within 45 minutes of each other at 3:01 a.m. and 3:44 a.m. according to National Resources Canada.

A slightly smaller quake happened before the 6.5 tremors, with several smaller tremors afterwards, including some reported late last night.

No tsunami warnings were in effect as of last night and none was expected.

In Port Hardy, police said that there had been no apparent damage or injuries.

The quakes’ epicenter was in the same area, south of the Queen Charlotte Islands, about 320 kilometers from Prince Rupert and about 560 kilometers from Vancouver.

Some residents of Bella Bella reported feeling the quakes, as did residents of Port Hardy and Port McNeill.

The site and magnitude of the quakes was not unusual, said seismologist Stephane Mazzotti, with the Pacific Geoscience Centre in Sidney, although the sequence was. Usually, there is one large earthquake, followed by several small ones, Mazzotti said. In this case, the precursor quake was not that small – about 5.5 on the Richter scale. Mazzotti said it ‘is something we’ll be looking over more carefully Monday morning.”

If the quakes had occurred near a town, they could have caused considerable structural damage.

Of the top 10 biggest quakes in Canadian history, according to the government website, eight of them had a magnitude between seven and ten. The eighth and ninth each had magnitudes of 6.9 with one of those in B.C.