Nox

Earthquakes hit off coast of BC
Location of Earthquakes
Courtesy of Natural Resources Canada
Friday, January 05 - 12:00:00 PM Erin Loxam/Lyle Fisher

VANCOUVER (News 1130) - People living in the Bella Bella region got a rather rude awakening this morning. Four significant earthquakes struck off the BC coast before the break of dawn.

Stephane Mazzotti, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada, says, "We had two big earthquakes, magnitude about 6.5 each, pretty much in the same location about 200km west of Bella-Bella about halfway between the southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands and the Northern tip of Vancouver island." He added, "They were about 45 minutes apart. One at 3:00 and one at quarter to 4:00."

There was also two earthquakes with magnitudes around 5.3 which preceeded and followed the two big ones. In total, there were nearly 20 earthquakes in the region overnight but most of them were not significant.

No major damage has been reported and a tsunami warning has not been issued.

These are the first earthquakes over a magnitude of 6 since 2004, when a 6.6 quake hit off the BC Coast near Port Alice.