4.9 magnitude earthquake strikes northwest of Pemberton

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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., could possibly be felt on northern and central Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast and elements of better Vancouver.

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John Cassidy, a seismologist with Pure Assets Canada, says individuals over a “very extensive area” of the province have reported feeling the earthquake.

Cassidy stated 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 similar magnitude hitting in 2017. He says Sunday’s quake wasn’t a whole shock for the reason that province’s coastal areas are an lively earthquake zone, however the largest and most frequent earthquakes happen offshore.

“For this dimension of an earthquake, aftershocks are anticipated,” Cassidy stated. “In actual fact we’re recording quite a lot of small aftershocks presently. So the most important that we’ve seen to this point is a couple of 2.6 magnitude.”

Cassidy stated 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 to this point.

Earlier this month, a magnitude 3.1 earthquake was felt in elements 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.

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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 commonly 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 information from Canadian Press and Glenda Luymes

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