Vancouver Island Earthquake 6.4 – Full Video
6.4 earthquake struck 175 miles west of Vancouver, causing buildings to sway in the Pacific coast Canadian city while causing no reported damage.
Residents of Vancouver Island, the 290-mile-long land mass to the west of the city, said they felt the impact. The temblor hit west of the island yesterday at 12:41 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“It was scary but it was quick, it only lasted a few seconds,” said Cathy Falavolito, who with her husband owns the Westview Marina & Lodge in Tahsis, British Columbia, on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The quake took place on a secondary fault, not the major Cascadia Subduction Zone, said John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington in Seattle. There was no tsunami because the edges of the fault moved sideways, not up and down, so a major wave wasn’t generated, he said.
“There will be lots of aftershocks, but they’re in a place that aren’t likely to cause a lot of damage,” he said.
A damaging tsunami isn’t expected, the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said on its website.
The earthquake was centered about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Port Alice, British Columbia, according to the warning center. It was the biggest in the region since November 2004, according to emergency officials, and caused no reports of injuries.
