Biggest in Canada in decades apparently and there were still tsunami warnings out for the Hawaiian Islands this morning though apparently they've now been downgraded to advisories.

Just a not-so-gentle reminder from Mother Nature that Canada isn't immune to these kinds of things. Fortunately, Haida Gwaii and that area of the coast is relative lightly inhabited. The same magnitude quake with an epicentre near Vancouver or Victoria could have been much worse. It was a higher magnitude than the 1989 San Francisco quake that killed 63 and left close to 4000 injured.

Mendalla

How close would this be to Witch?

Witch is on Saltspring which is quite a bit further south (south east end of Vancouver Island whereas Haida Gwaii is in the north due west of Prince Rupert.), so probably got hit with a tsunami warning but not sure how much the quake itself would have had. Should be okay at any rate.

Mendalla

Apparently people in my area in northeast BC felt the quake. My husband and I did not feel it. My sister is north of Victoria and she said she did not feel it. I learned about the quake on FaceBook, and thought people were over-reacting at first. Then I learned it was a 7.7 and the largest earthquake in Canadian history, or something like that. It is awesome that there was not more damage.

In 60 years is what I heard. The last one of this magnitude (actually a bit bigger, it was an 8.1) was in 1949 in the same area. There's a fault called the Queen Charlotte Fault (after Haida Gwaii's former name) running through the area that slips pretty frequently. The good news is that this fault tends to slip horizontally rather than vertically and that reduces the risk of major tsunamis being triggered.

Mendalla

I did hear 60 years too. Thanks.

People in downtown Vancouver felt it from the upper floors of highrises--I read a couple of tweets saying the people felt dizzy from it. I am on a lower floor and felt nothing (didn't feel the last one that others felt either). It worries me because I think Vancouver is unprepared and we've been told to expect a big earthquake anytime for years now. Lots of people shrug it off. Our buildings and bridges are not up to snuff--nowhere near as much as in Japan. Old buildings are toast;  un-reinforced brick, heritiage buidlings Vancouver, VIctoria, Bellingham and Seattle have  plenty of those--all those cities being in the same dangerous earthquake zone . Even some highrises, built prior to the mid 70's. it irks me that the government is even considering a pipeline!  And the money they are spending should be going to earthquake proofing (as much as can be) our buildings!

I'm glad that everyone, so far as I've heard, is fine from last night's quake.

I didn't feel it all in Gibsons.

I'm glad Neo.

It brings to mind anothergood point. Plenty of our church buildings--the one I go to, and several others, are in old stone buildings. They are not ready for an earthquake. it's the sort of thing people tend to put out of mind...but we should get prepared, do what we can to reinforce them, and have safety workshops and drills.

that was intentional, so that what a big one comes, squisho, everyone inside comes closer to g_d :3

Thanks Inanna...haha.

and (this is probably a good thing) yet another earthquake in my area that i haven't felt :3

the song of local earthquakes is that classic song, "Slip sliding away"...play it while imagining vancouver island tilting up into the sky and sinking into the earth...:3

reality is very entertaining

here is a scene that might play out in the GVRD

where was their g_d?

Yeah, I saw that scene a while ago, or a similar one. I think it gave me a PTSD type reaction, along with thereal events that happened in Japan. No reason to panick, just prepare. It could be any day between now and 100 yrs. But we still need to prepare.

and if this ever appears over City Hall, bend over and KYAG :3

why...noone will be at work anyway :)

haha

Seriously for a minute....I don't know what government officials are doing about or planning for in the event of an earthquake. The public is really unprepared. There are a few safety campaigns from time to time, but they are scarcely discussed. I take little comfort in the idea of getting under a table if the structure I am in is not properly reinforced.  Who cares about tourism,etc. if our buildings are at such risk. Their priorities appear to suck.

Here in Southern Ontario we often feel small quakes from faults in the Ohio and Ottawa valleys. I believe the geologists say that historically, the worst case scenario is a 6 or 6.5 so not much risk of a quake becoming a major disaster.  (keep in mind that Richter is a logarithmic scale so a 6 is 1/2 as powerful as a 7 is 1/2 as powerful as an 8 and so on).

There've been a couple of these in the last fifteen years or so. Once in 1998 when I was in Hamilton and once since settling here in London. Both times, I was in a moving car and the quake so mild that I couldn't feel it due to the car's motion. However, for the first one my wife was at the apartment of a student who lived in Hamilton and I was driving to pick her up. When I got there they had come downstairs in a panic because the quake had caused the building to sway.

The second one was in the Ottawa Valley and, IIRC, some buildings in the capital were evacuated and inspected or something due to structural concerns.

Mendalla

We have some, up to 100 year old structures, really unprepared, used by peple daily, inluding bridges--and upgrading has been slow, the idea thrown around, but little has been done. I think I will consider moving somewhere where buildings are new and not very high, and high enough above sea level.

Point Grey is the safest spot in Vancouver--also some of the most expensive housing---go figure.

Witch has stated here before that he lives on Saltspring Island, which is close to where I live - approximately 1000km south of the quake's epi-centre. Everyone I talked to at church this morning said they didn't feel anything but most of us know people in other areas of the province who did feel it. People around here were more concerned about the tsunami which, thankfully, was negligable.

Mendalla - The Richter scale being a (base 10) logarithmic scale means that a 6 is 1/10 of a 7, not 1/2. And an 8 would be 100 times a 6. If the current quake was 7.7 and the previous big one was 8.1, then this one would have been just a little under 1/2 of the previous. (1/ 10^.4)

But I read that a slightly smaller quake in 1946 (7.3) caused major damage in Port Alberni.

Minimal damage with this one. Amazingly.

for those who are still curious, take a look at this relentlessly detailed map of that collection of gleanings of mountains* known as BC (Peace River doesn't count -- it's to BC what the Ukraine is to Russia, but without the relentless danger and acrimony).

(image modified image found on google)

the superduper earthquake happened around the black diamond

WC's resident heathen, Witch, lives in a commune-of-yuppies-and-hippies-the-size-of-an-island nearish the erect arrow symbol

now you know :3

* y'see, BC has so much going for it that the powers that be made sure that most of BC's area was taken vertically in mountains; otherwise, most of Canada would be BC, and that just wouldn't be kosher *waggles eyebrows*

Oops. Brain fart. That's what I get for relying on memory and not consulting wiki.

The problem with relating Richter to damage is that Richter simply measures the energy of the quake. Whether the quake is deep or shallow, how the fault slips, what type of rock is between the epicentre and a given point, and other factors affect how much of that energy is actually delivered to that point and whether any damage is done. At least that's my understanding of the problem.

Mendalla

Inanna you are a brat. while the Peace may seem to be more Alberta-like, it is indeed part of BC. In fact, they made the border as they did partly to make sure they had all the gold during the gold-rush.  The BC Peace is even part of the map you have provided.

^^^ y'see, the old blood still runs deep and true...thank g_odness they are contained so far from civilization...every so often the CBC or whatnot makes a film or tv show based on something from there so that they don't rebell or something...

I'm glad everyone is safe......and now it's time to pray for those along the east coast.

LOL Inanna. Heck even the CBC forgot about us this morning. We had to listen to the Vancouver morning show until our show was halfway finished. I tweeted to ask where they were. I don't think they even knew until then.......it's a plot, I tell you, a plot.......*muttergrumblemuttergrumble....

some more media narratives aboot the continuing Haida Gawaii earthquakes:

"The recent West Coast earthquake appears to have shut off the water at the popular hot springs in Haida Gwaii's national park, but there is hope they could reappear someday.

After Saturday's 7.7 magnitude earthquake, Parks Canada workers went to check the springs and found they had run dry, according to Barb Rowsell, who owns Anvil Cove Charters.

"Three people went down to check it out, and sure enough there is no hot water and the rocks are dry and cold," said Rowsell, who has been ferrying visitors to Hotspring Island for years."

-- source

Click here for an interactive earthquake map.  No, you can't see Charlton Heston fighting the earthquakes...

"Natural disasters like Saturday’s earthquake and Hurricane Sandy may have major implications for B.C. homeowners, driving up insurance premiums and deductibles even in regions thousands of kilometres from seismic shifts and cyclonic storms.

“Earthquake coverage increases after a major event,” said Lubo Li, senior director at J.D. Power and Associates, a Toronto-based marketing information company."

Thank you for your concern folks, ofor all of us out here in BC.

Salt Spring Island is in the "Inside Passage" Which means a tsunami would pretty much have to wash completely over Vancouver Island, wiping Victoria completely off the map before...... hey.... just one second....

Witch . . . You okay :) :) :)

Witch - will you rescue me when I come floating by after that tsunami??? Pretty please!?!

Here is a clip from a documentary on what the BIG BIG ONE is going to be like hereaboots

(the bit where that bit of the city is rising in the sky is how I imagine Vancouver Island to do, just before it falls smack on me and my neighbourhood...)

Impressive!!!

and the earthquakes keep on happening

on the 11th there was a 6.3 even closer to Witch than the Haida Gwaii whopper

(heck, in October there was at least one 0.5 some 31 km near Victoria, south of Witch's island den of heathenry...)

now don't you worry -- Witch and his kinfolk are prepared with their magick, wit and drink & food :3