4.9 magnitude earthquake strikes northwest of Pemberton

Article content material

A 4.9 magnitude earthquake struck the west coast of B.C. on Sunday afternoon, roughly 137 kilometres northwest of Pemberton.

The earthquake, which occurred round 3:30 p.m., might be felt on northern and central Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast and components of better Vancouver.

Article content material

John Cassidy, a seismologist with Pure Sources Canada, says folks over a “very large area” of the province have reported feeling the earthquake.

Cassidy mentioned the quake was felt as distant as Kelowna, greater than 350 kilometres from the quake’s epicentre.

Cassidy says seismic occasions in that a part of the province are “comparatively uncommon,” with the final quake within the space across the identical magnitude hitting in 2017. He says Sunday’s quake wasn’t an entire shock because the province’s coastal areas are an lively earthquake zone, however the largest and most frequent earthquakes happen offshore.

“For this measurement of an earthquake, aftershocks are anticipated,” Cassidy mentioned. “In truth we’re recording a lot of small aftershocks at the moment. So the most important that we’ve seen up to now is a couple of 2.6 magnitude.”

Cassidy mentioned aftershocks can occur hours and even days after such quakes, however are inclined to drop off in frequency “as time goes on.”

There have been no reviews of injury or accidents up to now.

Earlier this month, a magnitude 3.1 earthquake was felt in components of the B.C.’s Okanagan area.

B.C.’s earthquake and tsunami information says there are a mean of three,000 quakes reported within the province yearly.

Article content material

The information says most of them are too small to be felt, however tremors robust sufficient to trigger structural harm sometimes occur as soon as each 10 years.

Nonetheless, B.C. is in danger from what is usually known as “the massive one” — a megathrust temblor that might happen offshore the place the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is being pressured underneath the North American plate — in addition to from fault strains that run by way of the Pacific Northwest.

— with recordsdata from Canadian Press and Glenda Luymes

Bookmark our web site and assist our journalism: Don’t miss the information it is advisable know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and join our newsletters right here.

You may as well assist our journalism by changing into a digital subscriber: For simply $14 a month, you may get limitless entry to The Vancouver Solar, The Province, Nationwide Submit and 13 different Canadian information websites. Assist us by subscribing at this time: