British Columbia will experience approximately 2,500 earthquakes in 2022

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British Columbia is the most seismically active region in Canada, according to Shake Out BC, an emergency preparedness organization.

Canada’s second largest earthquake of 2022 occurred in British Columbia, with a magnitude of 5.3 off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.

The largest, with a magnitude of 5.5, occurred in the Yukon, just across the border from British Columbia and Alaska.

They were two of about 2,500 that rocked the province last year, most of which occurred in the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii.

“It’s not uncommon to see a magnitude 5.5 or 6 earthquake as the largest earthquake of the year,” said John Cassidy, head of earthquakes at the Canadian Geological Survey.

“Some years we see much larger than that.”

Cassidy called 2022 “pretty typical” of earthquakes in British Columbia, which experiences thousands of earthquakes a year. British Columbia is the most seismically active region in Canada, according to Shake Out BC, an emergency preparedness organization.

The five largest earthquakes in British Columbia last year were between magnitude 5.0 and 5.5. Earthquakes of magnitude less than 5.5 rarely cause damage.

The largest earthquake in modern British Columbia history was the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that occurred in Haida Gwaii on August 22, 1949.

Although it is not currently possible to predict earthquakes, Cassidy said, the field has changed dramatically in the past decade, including improvements in data collection, data quality, and computing.

He pointed to a joint project between Canada, the United States, Germany and Japan that recently mapped the sea floor off the coast “in detail we didn’t have before”.

We have more data, and we have more tools on the ground. So we get better recordings and better information that really allows us to improve our seismic hazard models.

Two projects that are supposed to come online in about a year will provide significant improvements in earthquake warning and safety.

The first, an early warning network currently being deployed, is due to be fully operational in “a little over a year,” Cassidy said.

“It provides seconds, dozens of seconds or maybe even a few minutes of warning before a strong shaking occurs,” he said. “It has been used in many parts of the world.”

The second is a network of what Cassidy calls “strong motion” sensors, designed to record very large earthquakes — the kind that shake hard enough to “knock furniture off and people off their feet.”

“We don’t have Canadian data on vigorous shaking,” Cassidy said, calling that “important” data for engineers designing building codes for seismic safety.

“What we’re doing currently in our National Building Code is we’re using recordings of strong earthquakes from other parts of the world that are similar to Canada,” he said. “So if you’re in British Columbia, we look at data from Japan or data from New Zealand, where there have been some really strong earthquakes recently.”

He said Canada’s current network of seismic sensors records small earthquakes that would be drowned out by a very large earthquake.

“The new tools being deployed will actually be able to record strong vibration events,” Cassidy said.

In the end, being prepared and having strong building codes may be the most reliable protection against earthquakes. Simple steps like having a flashlight or headlamp on hand in case of a power outage, practicing the landing, covering, and pressing the drill can make all the difference in an emergency.

“If you’ve designed your facilities and people are prepared and know what they have to do, the timing (of earthquakes) isn’t so important,” Cassidy said.

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