Early earthquake notification system passes the test in Tofino, national system set for 2024
A team of researchers on Vancouver Island had a big breakthrough after a smaller earthquake struck near the coast of Tofino last Friday.
While the earthquake, measured at a magnitude of 4.8, wasn’t strong enough to cause damage, it was strong enough for the team at Ocean Networks Canada to determine that years of research has paid off.
“The Tofino earthquake was a really nice test,” said Katen Moran, president of Ocean Networks Canada.
The University of Victoria initiative, funded by Emergency Management BC, began installing sensors on Vancouver Island in 2017.
Moran says their sensors were able to detect the primary wave on Friday, she says if it was a bigger earthquake, they would have been able to provide around 35 seconds notice.
“It worked really well,”
“We were able to detect the energy from the earthquake, calculate the arrival time, should there have been a bigger earthquake from ground shaking to arrive,” Moran said.
While that program is making progress, a national system is also in the works, with the first sensor being installed in Horseshoe Bay back in March.
“This is a very exciting technology,” said Alison Bird, a seismologist and outreach officer with Natural Resources Canada's earthquake early warning system.
The system will detect the primary wave, then an alert would be issued to people’s phones and potentially to radio and television stations, similar to an amber alert.
Bird says she’s unsure if a specific time frame would be given for when the earthquake could strike.
“Research has shown that people tend to underestimate the amount of time to do something,” she said.
However Bird says it will give individuals enough time to take basic safety precautions
“Really the best thing to do is that drop, cover, hold on,” Bird said.
She says critical infrastructure operators will get alerts sent directly to them, giving them an opportunity to trigger technologies in place.
"They can open doors, close valves, stop hazardous machinery, that sort of thing, those little things you can do within a few seconds make a big difference in reducing the potential impact of that earthquake,”
The system is expected to be ready by 2024.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.