A MAJOR 7.7 magnitude earthquake has rocked the Queen Charlotte Islands
off the west coast of Canada with no immediate reports of damage.
The epicentre of the tremor, which occurred at 8.04pm on Saturday (1404
AEDT Sunday) was located 139km south of the town of Masset, the US Geological
Survey said. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no
"destructive widespread tsunami threat" at this time.
However, the regional West Coast-Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued a
regional warning for coasts located near the epicentre of the earthquake. "A
7.7 is a big, hefty earthquake. It's not something you can ignore," Gerard
Fryer, senior geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center told CNN
International. He explained that the latest tremor had occurred partly under an
island, but mostly under shallow water. "I think we have to be thankful it
happened where it did," Fryer said. "If that were a heavily populated
area, it would have caused significant damage. "It definitely would have
done significant damage if it had been under a city."
The Globe and Mail newspaper reported the quake was felt in Haida Gwaii
Island and across a swathe of north and central British Columbia including
Prince Rupert, Quesnel and Houston, with no immediate reports of damage. The US
Coast Guard in Alaska was trying to warn everyone with a boat on the water to
prepare for a potential tsunami, the report said. The Canadian paper also
quoted Lieutenant Bernard Auth of the Juneau Command Center as saying that the
US Coast Guard was also working with local authorities to alert people in
coastal towns to take precautions. The earthquake reading was based on the
open-ended Moment Magnitude scale used by US seismologists, which measures the
area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.
News.com.au
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