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'Earthquake swarm' hits western Canada

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (UPI) -- A regular, but unusually strong series of earthquakes are occurring this week off the Pacific Canadian coast of British Columbia, geologists said.

Scientist Garry Rogers of the Geological Survey of Canada told the Victoria Times-Colonist there had been 15 quakes recorded about 140 miles west of Vancouver Island since Monday.

"It's nothing to be worried about," Rogers said. "It reminds us that we're in a very active offshore activity area -- it's one of the most active in the world."

The largest so far has been a magnitude 5.2 quake Wednesday at 1:17 p.m., but Rogers told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., it wasn't likely anyone on shore felt it as the "earthquake swarm" was happening more than 150 miles offshore.

He told the broadcaster the quakes are "way too small to cause any tsunami or wave action," and "this appears to be a normal cracking of the Earth's crust."

The quakes were forecast to end Friday, the geology center said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 08/28/2008

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