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Magnitude 3.4 earthquake strikes B.C. coast, felt in Sechelt and Nanaimo

Magnitude 3.4 earthquake strikes B.C. coast, felt in Sechelt and Nanaimo

It turns out that romance wasn’t the only thing some B.C. residents were feeling on Valentine’s Day.

At about 8:12 p.m. PT, a small 3.4 magnitude earthquake struck about 30 kilometres northeast of Sechelt, B.C.

Earthquakes Canada says it was lightly felt throughout the Sunshine Coast, from Sechelt to Powell River, as well as in Nanaimo.

Source: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/magnitude-34-earthquake-strikes-bc-coast-felt-in-sechelt-and-nanaimo/45575/

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Megaquake would crumble BC Ferries terminals, says engineer Ray Hebden

Megaquake would crumble BC Ferries terminals, says engineer Ray Hebden

Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast could be cut off from food and emergency supplies in the event of a massive earthquake, unless BC Ferries upgrades its terminals, says the president of an engineering firm.

The island and the coastal communities are almost entirely dependent on BC Ferries as a transportation link to the mainland, said Ray Hebden of Hebden Engineering, who will give a public presentation on the issue on Wednesday.

In the event of a mega earthquake, terminals such as the one at Tsawwassen, which is built on soft alluvial soil, will likely crumble, he said.

“Our normal supply of food, commodities that we depend on is interrupted, plus all of the materials and equipment and specialized personnel required to rebuild after an earthquake,” he told On The Island.

“To respond to that, the first thing to do is get essential corridors opened again between population centres … all that all has to be done with equipment and forces that one can mobilize.

“If you can’t get those forces to the island to respond, then you have double problem.”

Are floating berths the answer?

Hebden is calling on BC Ferries to commission two new floating berths, similar to one built by his own company at Swartz Bay in 2006.

“Effectively the ground can shake and that mass stays inert,” he said.

Hebden says he has presented the idea to BC Ferries, but was told it can’t fund the proposal. BC Ferries was not immediately available for comment.

Hebden will be making a presentation, Earthquake Vulnerabilities of Ferry Links for Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities, at the North Saanich Municipal Hall on Wednesday at 7 p.m. PT.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/megaquake-would-crumble-bc-ferries-terminals-says-engineer-ray-hebden-1.2953848

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Fracking-induced earthquake puts B.C. gas bonanza on shaky ground

Fracking-induced earthquake puts B.C. gas bonanza on shaky ground

The small town of Fox Creek in northern Alberta may have broken the world’s ‘fracking earthquake’ record with the 4.4-magnitude shaker that hit last month.

The most probable cause, according to Alberta’s energy regulator, was nearby gas fracking operations. The recent quake was on many people’s mind as they listened to a presentation in Ottawa on the shale gas “bonanza” happening across North America today.

Fracking and earthquakes

“There seems to be a link between the volume of water [used in fracking] and seismic activity,” Denis Lavoie, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) told an audience of parliamentarians, experts and the general public in Ottawa during a presentation yesterday.

The talk was part of the ‘Bacon & Eggheads’ monthly morning lecture series put on by the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE) at Parliament’s Centre Block.

In his presentation, The Shale Gas Bonanza: Opportunities and Challenges, Lavoie confirmed fracking operations in British Columbia and Alberta have been “known to cause small seismic events.”

Hydraulic fracturing or fracking to access unconventional sources of natural gas like shale gas involves digging underground wells 200 to 3,000 meters vertically and another 1,000 meters or more horizontally to penetrate the rock-like shale.

Pressurized water mixed with hundreds of toxic substances (including hydrochloric acid, mercury and formaldehyde) is shot down the well to break apart the shale and push the natural gas to the surface.

A single fracking well consumes anywhere between seven to twenty-three million litres of water.

Lavoie believes the vast quantities of water industry injects into the ground is the “most likely candidate” for increasing the frequency and intensity of earthquakes in areas near fracking wells.

To demonstrate his point, Lavoie used fracking projects in northeastern B.C.’s Horn River Basin as his case study.

As long as monthly water injections at fracking wells remained around 100,000 cubic meters in the Horn River Basin, seismic activity did not increase beyond a magnitude of three. By 2010, as more fracking wells came online, water usage hit one million cubic meters— and earthquakes regularly went beyond magnitude three, peaking at 3.6.

When asked by Alberta MP Leon Benoit whether this seismic activity was problematic, Lavoie said earthquakes connected to Canadian fracking operations have not reached a magnitude yet where they could cause damage on the surface. Magnitudes of five and upwards can cause damage, according to Lavoie.

Fracking’s environmental impacts: short on data

Five thousand trillion cubic feet of natural gas are locked in shale in Canada, most of which is in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Not all of it is recoverable. Canada currently averages a twenty to twenty-five per cent recovery rate. If public opposition against fracking continues to grow, this recovery rate could drop even further.

“Assessing the environmental challenges to development is prerequisite to the social license,” Lavoie said.

Many of the other pressing “environmental challenges” that have come to light through a decade of fracking in B.C. and Alberta were not addressed in detail during the presentation.

Lavoie did state there was a definite need to collect baseline data before shale gas development takes place, echoing the findings of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) in 2014:

“There is reason to believe that shale gas development poses a risk to water resources, but the extent of that risk, and whether substantial damage has already occurred, cannot be assessed because of a lack of scientific data and understanding,” the report concluded. The report was commissioned and released by Environment Canada on May 1, 2014.

B.C. only has 10 monitoring stations overseeing the operations of thousands of fracking wells.

Source: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/fracking-induced-earthquake-puts-bc-gas-bonanza-shaky-ground

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Earthquake rattles B.C. coastline near Haida Gwaii

Earthquake rattles B.C. coastline near Haida Gwaii

HAIDA GWAII, B.C. — A 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Haida Gwaii, B.C., on Sunday afternoon.

There have been no reports of damage and a tsunami is not expected.

The quake hit at around 1:10 p.m. just west of the archipelago, and about 88 kilometres south of the Village of Queen Charlotte.

Hundreds of earthquakes have hit British Columbia or its coastline over the past month, although most are not felt by residents.

One 4.6-magnitude quake that struck near Tofino, on Jan. 8 was felt by occupants of the small tourist town, as was a 5.4-magnitude tremor on Jan. 2 near Port Hardy, B.C.

At least one B.C. seismologist says there’s a one in 10 chance that Vancouver Island will be hit by a major earthquake in the next 50 years.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Earthquake+rattles+coastline+near+Haida+Gwaii/10759343/story.html

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B.C. megathrust earthquake: people unprepared despite warnings

B.C. megathrust earthquake: people unprepared despite warnings

There have been many warnings about a large-scale earthquake expected off Vancouver Island within the next 50 years, but according to an environmental psychologist, people aren’t preparing for it.

“The people who live in higher risk areas do know they’re living in a higher risk area but they don’t take any more precautions than the people who are living on safer ground,” University of Victoria professor and environmental psychologist Robert Gifford told On The Island’s Gregor Craigie.

Gifford said only a small portion of people are in denial about the actual possibility of an earthquake, but many are just putting off planning for its eventuality.

“Everybody knows they should eat better or exercise, but not everybody does it.”

Others may not be preparing because a natural disaster like an earthquake is so far out of their control.

“You can’t stop the earthquake, but what such people should understand is there are things you can do to mitigate the damage to yourself, your family, other people,” he said.

Gifford said preparation doesn’t need to be all-consuming.

“I guess if you’ve done whatever you can … then I think it’s time to take it easy and engage in your life in a nice Victorian way.”

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-megathrust-earthquake-people-unprepared-despite-warnings-1.2920152

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Megathrust earthquake off B.C. coast extremely likely but might not strike for centuries

Megathrust earthquake off B.C. coast extremely likely but might not strike for centuries

A massive megathrust earthquake off the coast of B.C. — along with a tsunami — is a near certainty, experts say, but nailing down when it will hit is impossible to predict.

It could be centuries, in fact.

This powerful type of temblor was responsible for the devastation in the Indian Ocean in 2004 and Japan in 2011.

“The odds of it happening today are small,” says Simon Peacock, professor and dean of science at University of British Columbia, “but the odds of it happening in 500 years is incredibly high.”

There have been 19 similar events over the last 10,000 years, Peacock said, and the last time a megathrust earthquake struck off the West Coast was in 1700.

However, they don’t occur with regularity, so one could happen next year — or maybe not — for hundreds of years.

1. What is a megathrust earthquake?

A megathrust earthquake is caused by a sudden slip along the fault between two tectonic plates when one has been forced under another.

In the case of the West Coast, it is the Juan de Fuca plate that is moving eastward underneath the North America plate at a rate of a few centimetres per year.

John Clague, Canada research chair in natural hazard research, said the motion is curling the edge of the North America plate upwards, much the same way a rug would buckle if you pushed on one edge.

This puts a huge amount of strain on the fault until eventually, the North America plate “elastically bounces back,” causing the earthquake and creating the tsunami, Clague said.

The boundary between the Juan de Fuca and North America plate is called the Cascadia fault, which runs from the northern tip of Vancouver Island all the way down to the northern tip of California.

2. Which communities are most at risk?

In the event of a megathrust earthquake, the whole area would first experience very strong ground shaking that could cause damage to infrastructure, and then a short time later, there would be be a tsunami, Peacock said.

“It’s a one-two punch,” he said.

The western coast of Vancouver Island, including communities like Tofino, would bear the brunt of any large tsunami waves, which would form a natural barrier and help to shelter major population centres like Victoria and Vancouver.

Clague said it’s difficult to predict with any certainty but the west coast of Vancouver Island could experience tsunami waves between five and 10 metres high, possibly within 20 minutes of the event.

Victoria could experience waves between three and five metres more than an hour later, and Vancouver could experience waves as high as one or two metres, Clague said.

3. How would people be warned?

Alerting the public about the risk of a tsunami falls to Emergency Management BC, which receives information from the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

Officials determine if there is a tsunami risk and issue the appropriate warnings to various communities by contacting local emergency co-ordinators, first responders like police and fire, and local media.

The actual business of ensuring news reaches individuals within affected communities depends on the emergency plan of each community, says Chris Duffy, executive director of operations and recovery transition with Emergency Management BC.

This can include phone, email or fax messages, as well as sirens and even officials going door to door. Social media has also played an increasingly important role over the last few years, he said.

Residents of affected communities would then head for specified higher ground or designated emergency shelters.

Emergency Management BC says people should remain there until they are given the all-clear. The first wave of a tsunami may not be the largest and several more could follow in the hours after an earthquake.

4. How should you prepare?

Duffy said there is no one-size-fits-all approach to these evacuations, so it is important for people to be aware of their own community’s plan.

Emergency Management BC also urges person or family to have a specific plan and a store of emergency supplies, including food and water, that can last three days.

In the event of a massive megathrust earthquake, the first warning signs would be the temblor itself. During the quake in 1700, scientists believe the area may have shaken for several minutes.

That should be enough warning for people to start carrying out their individual plans, Duffy said.

“If you’re in an exposed coastal community and you feel the ground shake violently for a minute, don’t wait for a phone call from a government officer,” Duffy said. “I mean, that is your alert.”

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/megathrust-earthquake-off-b-c-coast-extremely-likely-but-might-not-strike-for-centuries-1.2917937

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B.C. megathrust earthquake will rip earth open like a zipper, expert says

The low tide, bright sunshine and constant roar of endlessly approaching waves display the full power of the wide-open Vancouver Island shoreline at the remote beach handed down to Stella Peters and her family as a wedding dowry.

For generations, Peters and her relatives have been the keepers of Pachena Bay, the picturesque beach that scientists forecast as an epicentre for the next massive earthquake and tsunami.

The bay is also the home to the Huu-ay-aht First Nations village of Anacla, about 300 kilometres northwest of Victoria, which aboriginal oral history says was devastated when an ancient earthquake convulsed the West Coast of North America.

First Nations from Vancouver Island to northern California describe the earthquake and tsunami in similar legends and artwork involving a life-and-death struggle between a thunderbird and a whale that caused the earth to shake violently and the seas to wash away their people and homes.

20-minute warning to higher ground

When the next megathrust quake hits, residents on the west side of Vancouver Island will barely have 20 minutes to get to higher ground.

“Every year we hear the same thing, that, ‘Oh, the big waves are going to come, the big waves are going to come,”‘ Peters says as she looks out on the Pacific Ocean. “I’m not really too worried about it actually happening. We’re not ready for it, but in a sense we are. We seem to be on the ball when it comes to evacuating the place.”

“Nobody (will be) left behind,” says Peters. “All the elders, the kids, even the dogs are all taken out of here.”

On Jan. 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m., a magnitude 9 earthquake struck the Pacific coast, causing violent shaking for minutes that scientists believe was felt as far away as the Manitoba border. The shaking was followed almost immediately by a tsunami that legend and scientists say sucked everybody and everything along the outer coast into the ocean.

About nine hours later, a tsunami the height of a four-storey building hit the Japanese coast on Jan. 27, 1700, destroying all in its path.

But It wasn’t until the late 1990s that scientists linked the historical records of the tsunami in Japan to geologic reports of the earthquake off the Pacific coast in North America, allowing them to accurately determine the exact time the earthquake struck the West Coast.

Scientists using earthquake mapping and profiling techniques now believe the ancient quake and tsunami are eerily similar to the magnitude 9.2 earthquake and tsunami that struck in the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004, killing more than 250,000 people.

Earthquakes and tsunamis like the Vancouver Island and Boxing Day events are not one-time occurrences, due to their locations near major fault lines that build up pressure over 300 to 500 years and eventually cause the earth to buckle and let go, scientists say.

Stress building on locked plates

The Cascadia subduction zone off Vancouver Island is the result of two locked geological plates under the sea floor.

“Right now the two plates are sort of stuck together,” says Alison Bird, a Victoria-area Natural Resources Canada seismologist. “They’re locked, yet they are still moving toward each other. What’s happening is there’s a lot of stress building up. The stress builds up over hundreds of years and when it releases it releases in a megathrust earthquake.”

Following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, about 70 Pachena Bay residents were evacuated to the village’s hilltop administration building and long house. Peters says there was no damage, but the Pachena River shifted from low tide to high tide in minutes.

University of Victoria ocean engineer Kate Moran says the Huu-ay-aht council was wise to accept the advice of its elders and build its new administration building high above Pachena Bay because it’s only a matter of time before another devastating tsunami arrives.

Moran, who previously advised the Obama administration in the United States on climate policy issues, headed the first research team into the Indian Ocean area following the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami.

Indian ocean quake similar to ‘big one’

She says there are many similarities between Boxing Day 2004 and Vancouver Island Jan. 26, 1700.

In both cases, there was a major rupture of the earth that triggered deadly earthquakes and tsunamis, Moran says. She described the events in 1700 and 2004 as ripping open the earth’s zipper.

“What you can now do is actually put videos to the event and to me that’s really helpful for people understanding the risks here (on Vancouver Island),” says Moran, who heads the university’s world-leading Ocean Networks Canada, which includes a 24-hour ocean monitoring program through a series of Internet connected cables.

She says the university is planning to install a specialized radar at Tofino’s airport this year that can detect tsunami waves far offshore.

“When scientists want to study subduction zones, I would say that Cascadia, (Japan’s) Nankai, Barbados and Chile are the (locations) that have been studied the most because of their significance,” Moran says.

‘Many people were lost’

Bird says experts know that the ancient quake and tsunami devastated the western shores of Vancouver Island and the eastern coast of Japan.

“This completely jibes with First Nations oral history, which talks about the fact it was wintertime and they’d just gone to bed,” she says. “Sadly, villages along that western coastline were decimated by this wave. Many people were lost. The (Japanese) recorded the time the wave hit at various points along the coast and how high the wave went up.”

She says if a similar earthquake occurs now, people living along the outer coast of Vancouver Island will have between 15 and 20 minutes to escape. Victoria can expect a tsunami wave of between two and four metres within 75 minutes.

Greater Vancouver would likely escape a tsunami in the event of a megathrust earthquake, but the shaking would be prolonged and violent enough to damage buildings, says Bird.

The odds of another megathrust earthquake and tsunami on Vancouver Island happening within the next 50 years are about one-in-10, says Bird.

Peters says she believes somebody or something has been looking out for her village for the past 315 years, but she also knows that could change at any moment.

“Right where we live we have to deal with what Mother Nature gives us,” she says.

“We’re supposed to be 20 metres above sea level, but now where the village is, we’re six metres above.”

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-megathrust-earthquake-will-rip-earth-open-like-a-zipper-expert-says-1.2917261

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Shaky Ground: Few in B.C. are prepared for a big earthquake

Shaky Ground: Few in B.C. are prepared for a big earthquake

VANCOUVER — University of Victoria environmental psychology professor Robert Gifford has stockpiled a case of 12 cans of beans in his basement in case a big earthquake strikes coastal B.C.

Well, there used to be 12 cans, but Gifford got hungry and ate two of them. The rest have been sitting around so long his partner worries they may have gone bad.

The self-deprecating Gifford is quick to admit that his token preparation for the Big One is inadequate.

Gifford calls that tokenism a “dragon of inaction” — a psychological barrier that prevents people from preparing for disasters such as earthquakes.

Sechelt-based earthquake authority Jerry Thompson calls the risk of a mega-quake off B.C.’s coast a sleeping monster that could awake at any time. This monster’s destructive power, he says, will be swelled by the dragons of denial that keep the province’s citizens from preparing for the shaker they know in their bones is coming.

It’s a scene of mass apathy that has left experts like Thompson deeply worried. Corporations, employers and government have been, to varying degrees, making plans to cope with natural disasters, they say.

But most individuals and families in B.C. are sitting on their hands when it comes to planning for quakes and tsunamis — as well as other disasters such as storms, fire and flood, says Dee Miller, president of FAST Ltd., a first aid and survival-gear manufacturer in Delta.

Chances in lifetime ‘pretty high’

“It may not be the Big One, but the likelihood of having to deal with a major disaster in your lifetime is pretty high,” says Miller, who co-founded FAST in 1988.

“People don’t even have a basic plan. They’re better educated about disasters but more apathetic.

“That worries me a lot. There will be suffering. I’m really concerned about marginalized people such as the elderly.”

Catastrophes around the world hardly stir a ripple of interest among B.C. residents in buying FAST’s emergency kits, Miller says. The 2011 earthquake that slammed Christchurch, New Zealand, saw no blip in sales at all. The quake-tsunami less than a month later in Japan triggered only a small spike.

“The vast majority of people in B.C. have not prepared. They may have some bottled water and food but don’t have adequate supplies,” says Brian Fong, president of Burnaby-based 72 Hours, which sells emergency preparedness products.

“People make a New Year’s resolution to get ready. Something else comes up and they totally forget about it.”

Immigrants unaware

Recent immigrants to B.C. are often less aware of the risks of natural disasters than longer-term residents who have been exposed to repeated warnings from government and schools, Fong says.

B.C.’s Pacific coast is the most earthquake-prone area of Canada, Natural Resources Canada says. More than 100 quakes of at least magnitude 5 have occurred over the past 70 years.

B.C. as a whole has had 331 quakes of at least magnitude 1.5 over the past year, according to earthquaketrack.com.

B.C. residents may be in a state of delusion about their physical and financial preparedness for a disaster such as a destructive quake. Two-thirds of B.C. and Quebec residents are confident they’re financially ready for an earthquake, according to a survey released in October by the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Yet only 31 per cent of those surveyed have earthquake insurance and half had never heard of earthquake insurance.

B.C. residents are concerned about earthquakes but see them as a far-off possibility. Most believe a quake won’t hit their area for another 50 years, the survey found.

That could be a big mistake. Experts say a big quake in B.C. is “a looming catastrophe” — a matter of not “if” but “when.” Scientists can’t pinpoint when but say it could strike in a few hundred years — or tonight.

30 per cent chance by 2065

There’s at least a 30-per-cent chance that an earthquake “strong enough to cause significant damage” will smite B.C.’s coast over the next 50 years, according to a separate report prepared for the insurance bureau. A 9.0-magnitude quake 75 kilometres off the west coast of Vancouver Island could cause $74.7 billion in damages from the quake and its dance partners — tsunami, fire, liquefaction and landslides, the report found.

Separate studies estimate economic losses in Washington and Oregon of almost $80 billion US. The death toll in the U.S. could reach 10,000, science journalist Sandi Doughton says in her book Full-Rip 9.0.

“The economy of North America would be staggered for a decade easily,” Thompson says.

The monster poised to unleash a mega-quake is the Cascadia subduction zone, an offshore crack in the earth’s crust running 1,300 km from northern Vancouver Island to northern California.

Thompson, author of the 2011 bestseller Cascadia’s Fault, says the Cascadia zone is almost identical to the offshore Sumatran fault that ruptured in 2004, triggering a lethal tsunami.

“What happened in Sumatra in 2004 will happen to North America, beyond any reasonable scientific doubt,” Thompson writes. “A nearly identical earthquake will rattle the West Coast and a train of killer waves will tear across the Pacific.”

Devastating quake in 1700

Dec. 26, 2014, marked the 10th anniversary of the 9.3-magnitude quake and tsunami that killed about 228,000 people. But the anniversary to which West Coast residents should pay close attention is Jan. 26, Thompson says. At about 9 p.m. on that day in 1700, a magnitude 9.0 mega-thrust quake — when a plate, or chunk of crust, slides beneath another plate — hit B.C. It sparked a tsunami that wiped out aboriginal villages on the West Coast.

Scientists believe such monster quakes at the northern end of Cascadia recur every 480 years or so — which means the next one is getting close.

“It will send crippling shock waves across a far wider area than all the California quakes you’ve ever heard about,” Thompson writes.

“Cascadia’s fault will slam five cities at once: Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Portland, and Sacramento.

“(It) will cripple or destroy dozens of smaller towns and coastal villages from Tofino and Ucluelet on Vancouver Island to Crescent City and Eureka in northern California.”

Thompson sees recent signs of progress by governments in bracing for a disaster of this scale, but says they’re not nearly enough.

“Federal and provincial emergency planners in British Columbia are laughably under-equipped and underfunded,” he writes.

‘No Cavalry’

“There will be no cavalry racing over the hill to save the day, no government white knights to bail anybody out. It’ll be every man, woman and child for themselves.”

Last March, a B.C. auditor general’s report said Emergency Management B.C., the agency charged with leading the province’s response to a quake, has been inadequately funded and can’t handle the impacts of a catastrophic quake.

A B.C. justice ministry spokesman says work has been completed on two of the report’s nine recommendations and is underway on the remaining seven.

Thompson argues that anyone who has lived in the Pacific Northwest for a while knows deep down that a mega-thrust will eventually happen. But most of us bury that knowledge beneath more immediate challenges and “hope the future never comes,” he says.

“People are in deep denial,” Thompson says. “They have plenty of other things to worry about: Will I lose my job? Can I pay the mortgage next month? Will the parasites on Wall Street suck my pension fund dry?”

Repeated warnings about killer quakes create disaster fatigue, resignation and inertia. Earthquakes become just another threat like asteroid strikes, terrorist attacks and deadly plagues, Thompson says.

“So many things might happen, people tend to shut down or say ‘C’est la vie, what will be, will be.”

Not over when it’s over

John Clague, director of the Centre for International Hazard Research at Simon Fraser University, says people are sensible to prioritize hazards. The risk of injury in driving cars is far greater than being caught in natural disasters, which are infrequent, he says.

The rarity of major quakes makes personal preparation “a bit of a hard sell,” Clague says.

Taken as a whole, however, disasters such as storms, quakes, floods and fires are not so rare in B.C., Clague says. And a destructive quake could leave those who have not bothered to plan in a rubble heap of trouble.

“A lot of people would not have a clue if an event like this happened,” Clague says. “It’s not just over when the shaking stops and you realize you survived. You’ve got to deal with the health, social and economic manifestations.

“You don’t know where your kids are. What happens if you can’t reach your place of employment or your business goes down?”

A big quake in B.C. is inevitable but scientists can’t pinpoint when it will occur, Clague says.

“If you look at most subduction zones, they’re not uniform. They don’t go off like clockwork every 500 years,” he says.

Uncertainty leads to inaction

B.C. residents seize on this unpredictability to feed their dragons of inaction, Gifford says. People unsure about whether something bad will happen often cope by becoming optimistic. They tell themselves it likely won’t happen to them and carry on as they did before, he says.

“Uncertainty always leads to taking the same road, or the self-interest road or the non-action road,” Gifford says.

What does it take to motivate the province’s residents into preparing for a disaster?

Miller believes it will take “a near miss” — a quake that shakes people enough to get their attention.

Gifford says people are capable of thinking ahead. But the human brain’s default position — a position set as our ancestors struggled to survive on the African plain some 30,000 years ago — is to focus on what is in front of it, he says.

“So one solution is to somehow make (the risk) here and now,” he says. “Which is hard.”

Earthquake watchers such as Thompson are careful to avoid scaremongering when they issue warnings about the looming Big One. But Gifford suggests arousing modest fear in individuals may be effective.

It’s an approach that worked with anti-smoking campaigns a few decades ago, he says.

“You want to frighten people, but not too much,” he says. “If you overdo it, people will just say it doesn’t affect me and won’t do anything.”

Can you be self-sufficient for 72 hours?

• People should prepare for natural disasters such as earthquakes by keeping an emergency kit in their home, car and workplace, Emergency Planning B.C. says.

• Each person should have enough water, food and items such as a battery-powered radio, blankets and extra clothing to be self-sufficient for 72 hours after an emergency.

• Families should devise a plan covering how members will contact each other if they’re separated when a quake strikes.

• Families should agree in advance on a meeting place and an out-of-area contact person to whom they can report that they are safe.

• Take a first aid course, including CPR.

• Know the safe and dangerous places in your home.

For more information on how to prepare for a quake, go to embc.gov.bc.ca.

Aware, yet under-prepared

Knowing you face a greater risk in an earthquake is one thing. Doing something about it is another.

People living in areas of Victoria at higher risk of earthquake damage are no more likely to prepare themselves for a quake than residents of lower-risk zones.

That’s one of the findings of two researchers who surveyed Victoria residents last fall about their perception of earthquake risk.

Zahra Asgarizade, a visiting PhD student form Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, and University of Victoria environmental psychology professor Robert Gifford are crunching the results of interviews with 100 people in higher- and lower-risk zones of the city, based on geological setting.

The study, which Asgarizade suggested and for which she did most of the data gathering, found the residents of the higher-risk zone were, on average, more aware of their risk. But they were no more inclined to have done anything about it than those in less risky areas.

The typical respondent claimed to have carried out about seven or eight of some 16 actions listed by Asgarizade and Gifford to ease the impact of a quake.

“Based on other studies, I would guess that less was done than claimed,” Gifford says.

Asked how much a big quake would threaten their lives, respondents answered, on average, “slightly.”

The findings come as no surprise to Gifford.

“I would be surprised if I believed that people were rational — for example, ‘I am at risk, so I will take more precautions’ — but I do not believe we are rational,” Gifford says. “Of course, some people are rational but across a broad sample, we are not.”

Asked when they thought the Big One would strike, about 40 per cent said within 50 years, about 40 per cent said within 100 years, 10 per cent said within 10 years and about seven per cent said more than 100 years.

Gifford speculates that people’s perception of timing would be similar in Vancouver and elsewhere in the province.

Beware the ‘dragon of inaction’

Many B.C. residents believe a major earthquake or other disaster is coming, but do little or nothing to prepare. What’s that about?

Gifford says this inertia is caused by “dragons of inaction” — inner barriers that block people from preparing for disaster.

Of the roughly 30 dragons of inaction that inhabit people’s minds, Gifford identifies seven that keep individuals from getting ready for a natural calamity such as an earthquake:

• The dragon of uncertainty. It often justifies inaction or postponed action.

• The dragon of judgmental discounting. A disaster will happen later, or elsewhere, so there’s no need to do anything.

• The dragon of habit. This beastie is also known as behavioural momentum. Many habitual behaviours are resistant to change, or change slowly.

• The dragon of conflicting goals. “I have other more immediate things to do.”

• The dragon of optimism bias. “It won’t happen, at least to me, at least not soon.”

• The dragon of tokenism. People take the easiest steps to prepare for disaster rather than the most effective.

• The dragon of conformity. If no one else in your neighbourhood is preparing for an earthquake, you likely won’t either.

Source: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/shaky-ground-few-in-b-c-are-prepared-for-a-big-earthquake-1.1727389

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Why have there been so many earthquakes off the coast of B.C.?

Why have there been so many earthquakes off the coast of B.C.?

Over the past month there have been 169 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or above off the coast of British Columbia. Is this a sign of the “big one?”

“There has been a slight increase in activity,” said Alison Bird, seismologist with Natural Resources Canada. “But from time to time we have swarm activity off the coast.”

In fact, the last time it was so active was September 2013.

“It’s pretty routine. With the kinds of tectonics in this region, the forces that the plates are under, it’s not a surprise that we have a sudden burst of small earthquakes.”

There are many faults in that area west of Port Hardy. You have plates moving away from each other, others that are moving side by side, and then one plate that is sliding under another. All those different motions make it a hotbed of activity.

Bird said that it’s unlikely that this swarm is associated with anything larger. That’s because it’s not in the right area, and that swarms don’t necessarily indicate something larger.

Still, though it happens from time to time, that doesn’t mean that B.C. residents shouldn’t always be prepared.

Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, concurred.

“No one knows for sure,” he said. “We do get these swarms from time to time but that’s because it’s a very active area.”

For the mega-thrust earthquake — the one we tend to call “The Big One” which would be somewhere near magnitude 9 — Bird says there is a one-in-ten chance of that happening within the next 50 years.

But if people are prepared for that one, they will be prepared for anything.

When it comes to the Victoria area, there is a one in three chance of of magnitude 6 or bigger in the next 50 years.

The magnitude 4.6 earthquake in Tofino is separate from the swarm occurring off the coast, but earthquakes occur in that region almost every day, Bird said. It’s just that that one was a little larger than most.

B.C. residents aren’t strangers to the shaking and rattling of the earth. But it’s possible that, because a large earthquake hasn’t occurred in a long time, people forget that one day they could face a much more dangerous situation.

“They’re a good reminder that this is earthquake country. We really have to respect that,” Bird said. “The thing is, we haven’t had anything truly large for so long that people have become complacent and don’t grasp the threat in the region.”

Bird has some advice.

“Just be prepared regardless of what’s happening with the earthquakes.”

Source: http://globalnews.ca/news/1762471/why-have-there-been-so-many-earthquakes-off-the-coast-of-b-c/

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Fracking triggered hundreds of earthquakes in northern B.C., says Oil and Gas Commission

Fracking triggered hundreds of earthquakes in northern B.C., says Oil and Gas Commission

Fracking caused hundreds of seismic events in the Montney basin area surrounding Fort St. John and Dawson Creek between August 2013 and October 2014, including 11 earthquakes that could be felt on the surface, a new British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission report states.

However, no person or property was injured as a result of those earthquakes, according to the report.

The number of earthquakes is associated with development, according to an oil and gas industry executive.

“I would think that the percentage of induced events will be definitely scaled back or forward with activity counts,” said Brad Herald, vice-president of Western Canada Operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

The amount of seismic events caused by oil and gas operations that could not be felt on the surface was much higher. There were about 220 seismic events in the Montney in those circumstances.

The earthquakes ranged from 1 to 4.4 on the Mercalli scale. The Mercalli scale, which is used in place of the Richter scale, measures earthquake magnitude.

According to the U.S. Geological Service, 1 to 3 magnitude quakes can rarely be felt on the surface. The majority of the earthquakes were in this category. A 3 to 3.9 magnitude quake can be “felt only by a few persons at best, especially on upper floors of buildings.” Less than 10 of these events were in this category. A 4 to 4.9 earthquake can be felt indoors by many, and outdoors by few. It could also wake some people up. Only one or two events were in this category.

The majority of the seismic events — about 84% — came as a result of regular fracking well operations. The other 16% were caused by disposal wells.

But the report stated that two disposal wells created 38 seismic events.

B.C. has 104 disposal wells within its borders.

Hydraulic fracturing — the process used to extract natural gas from deep underground — has long been linked to earthquakes.

“I don’t think it’s a surprise to us,” said Herald. “We monitor those active areas globally in terms of induced seismicity to hydraulic fracturing … we do understand that in some instances there’s induced seismicity related to hydraulic fracturing.”

Last year, his group came forward with a list of operating guidelines to help operators deal with the possibility of earthquakes.

“Industry takes this very seriously and we understand the public has concerns about the issue,” Herald added. “There has been no injuries and no damage to property, but it’s still a felt event, they can be unsettling for people at the surface.”

He further explained that the likelihood of fracking-caused earthquakes would depend on where activities were taking place. In 2012, fracking was linked to earthquakes in the Horn River basin — the area around Northern Rockies Regional Municipality.

But the Montney basin area has seen more development. By August 2014, close to 90% of fracking operations occurred in the Montney area, the OGC report stated.

“We want to understand where the events are occurring,” said Herald.

Questions sent to the OGC about whether or not they expected these events to increase either in strength or numbers were not returned as of press time.

Report recommendations supported by CAPP

The report also made some recommendations about seismic events caused by fracking.

Three included identifying pre-existing faults, a dense array deploment requested in certain areas where more information is needed, fault zone avoidance for fracking operations, and early flow back of fluids used in fracking.

Herald said that his group was supportive of the recommendations.

Source: http://www.biv.com/article/2015/1/fracking-triggered-hundreds-earthquakes-northern-b/

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