2 more earthquakes strike off BC Coast in early morning hours

Oct 22 2018, 8:49 pm

UPDATE:

After a series of earthquakes hit off the west coast of Vancouver Island on Sunday night, a seventh earthquake has been reported this morning 225 km west of the town of Tofino, and 419 km west of Victoria.

ORIGINAL STORY: 

Last night, reports came in of three earthquakes of a 6.5 magnitude or higher occurring, all within an hour of each other, off the BC coast. A fourth earthquake took place at 11:36 pm PST, with a magnitude of 4.9 and a deeper depth of 17.8 km.

Since then, two more earthquakes have struck near the same area, on the Explorer seismic plate.

Both were significantly smaller than their predecessors, one of a magnitude 4.3 taking place at 12:30 am (PST), and another of 4.4 at 1:43 am (PST), on October 22. Both were over 200 km from Port Hardy, BC. And each took place at a depth of around 10 km, the same depth as the three 6.5+ earthquakes.

According to the US Geological Survey, the first earthquake struck at 10:39 pm (PST) with a magnitude of 6.6followed by a magnitude 6.8 at 11:16 pm and, minutes later, (11:22 PST) a third earthquake hit with a magnitude of 6.5.

Another earthquake took place at 11:36 pm PST, with a magnitude of 4.9 and a deeper depth of 17.8 km.

According to a tweet released by the US National Tsunami Warning Center, a government agency that monitors and issues tsunami information for the continental US and Canada, no tsunami is expected. They issued individual alerts for each event.

The second earthquake of the night was the largest in BC since the magnitude 7.8 that hit on October 27, 2012, in Haida Gwaii.

-With files from Kenneth Chan

 

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