"There Would Be Fatalities"

"This was a huge earthquake - a magnitude 7.7 is the type of earthquake that only happens maybe once or twice around the world each year.
"It's Canada's equivalent to the San Andreas Fault."
John Cassidy, seismologist, Natural Resources Canada

 But this wasn't the Big One.  The one that happens every half-millenium.  The one where the Juan de Fuca Plate west of Vancouver Island, moving under the North American Plate, in a process called subduction, finally results in catastrophe.  That would produce a tsunami similar to the one that struck Japan after its incredible 9.1 magnitude earthquake in March 2011.

The 7.7-magnitude quake was different, the Pacific and the North American tectonic plates simply slid past one another.  And such horizontal movement doesn't pose a tsunami risk, such as vertical plate movement would. Which was what happened in Japan.  Still, the week-end's Haida Gwaii earthquake has resulted in additional aftershocks, the greatest 6.4, and hundreds of other, lesser shocks.

Fortunately, although people living in Haida Gwaii felt the earth tremble around them, and objects shaking off shelves in their homes for what seemed an impossibly drawn-out length of time - amounting to no more than 60 seconds - there was no damage reported, no one hurt.

"I really thought my house was coming down.  For how much the house was shaking, I'm surprised at how little happened," said a much relieved Faye Beaulieu.

Canada's largest ever earthquake recorded was a magnitude 8.1 that occurred in 1949.  This 7.7-magnitude quake was a close second.  Although it was nothing like the anticipated 'big one', these types of tremors are still capable of producing huge damage, if they strike in the 'right' place, and given greater populated areas that are struck.

 "Everyone's concerned about the big one, but the ones that are similar to what happened under Courtenay, these happen every 40 or 50 years.  If you compare similar sized earthquakes and the damage they do, it would be a very significant event", said Brent Ward, an earth scientist at Simon Fraser University.

As for the 'big one', when it occurs: "We would get the entire West Coast of Vancouver Island being affected by a large tsunami, similar in size to the one that hit Japan. We would get intense ground shaking throughout southwestern B.C. down into Washington and possibly into Oregon, so we would see a very huge area affected by damaged buildings, damaged roads and bridges.  There would be fatalities."