The British Columbia earthquake early warning system is expected to be completed in 2024

[ad_1]

The British Columbia Earthquake Early Warning System is in the spotlight again as the anniversary of a massive 9.0 Maginot earthquake approaches.

On January 26, 1700, one of the world’s largest earthquakes rocked off the west coast of North America.

The earthquake rippled from the northern tip of Vancouver Island all the way into Northern California, destroying homes, causing flooding and sweeping people off their feet.

Local Aboriginal communities handed out stories of the astonishing earthquake, tsunami, and aftershocks caused by the rupture of the Cascadia subduction zone, with dates corroborated by scientists in Japan, who wrote records of the tsunami reaching their shores from an earthquake originating from elsewhere. In the world.

“[The earthquake] It is well documented in the oral traditions of First Nations groups from Vancouver Island all the way to California,” said seismologist John Cassidy on Victoria radio station CFAX 1070.

“All of these Aboriginal oral traditions describe exactly what we would expect from one of these subduction earthquakes,” he said.

Vancouver Island is located in the Cascadia subduction zone, and Cassidy says recent seismological research has shown that 19 similar massive earthquakes associated with subduction zone motion have occurred over the past 10,000 years.

Each earthquake occurs within a range of 200 to 850 years, and Canada is looking at ways to prepare for future earthquakes.

National Earthquake Warning System

Canada is building about 400 EEW sensor stations across the country, including more than 100 planned in British Columbia.

Earthquake early warning sensors are designed to pick up seismic waves that occur immediately after an earthquake occurs.

Sensors will give residents precious moments before the earthquake hits them.

“So there’s an opportunity for warning time depending on how far the earthquake is,” Cassidy said, noting that a massive subduction zone earthquake in British Columbia would occur offshore.

“If you’re very close, you might only have five seconds or 10 seconds, but if the earthquake started far away, like outside Oregon or outside California, the warning could be four minutes to five minutes,” he said.

“It’s not much, but it’s certainly enough to sit under desks or sit under tables — time to get away from cupboards that might collapse, time for surgeons to put in scalpels, time to open garage doors in fire halls, and stop elevators so he said.

“So a lot of things can be done automatically with a very short amount of warning time.”

Canada’s national EEW network is scheduled for completion in 2024. EEW stations are stationed around areas where there is a threat of a major earthquake, particularly around areas that are densely populated or contain critical infrastructure, such as power plants or rail lines.

An earthquake early warning system, Cassidy says, is “an important tool in our tool belt” for earthquake protection.

Other important tools include modern building codes and preparedness by residents.

[ad_2]