Two earthquakes have shaken communities on Northern Vancouver Island today.
A 4.6 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Vancouver Island, 166 km west of Port Alice, at around 1:27 pm. Then, at 2:45 pm, a 5.5 magnitude quake happened in the same area.
Seismologist for Natural Resources Canada, John Cassidey says clusters of earthquakes happen off Vancouver Island's coast all the time, as it's the most seismically active region in all of Canada.
"Last October we had a series of magnitude 6.5 and 6.8 earthquakes, that occurred about 70 kilometres from today's events. And those were also in a very quick succession, within a few hours. And back in February of this year, just a couple of months ago, we had a series of 4 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or 5, in the same area."
Karen Robertson, manager of the Outpost at Winter Harbour, tells CTV News that she felt the second quake when she was sitting at home, reading.
"I heard the house kind of creak, it's an older wood structure home, and thought that was kind of weird. And then all of the sudden the chair started shaking sideways, and I thought I was imagining it, but then the TV screen was also moving. So it was kind of a very, very weird sensation"
She says the shaking lasted just a few seconds, adding that it's the first time she's felt an earthquake of that size.
Cassidey says if the earthquake were closer to town, the 5.3 magnitude quake could have done some damage.
"That's the level where in communities we might start to see some damage. We might start to see items falling from shelves, and bricks, and very minor damage. It's a fairly significant shaking level if you are very close to that earthquake's epicentre."
Robertson says she wasn't scared, and checked the Coast Guard scanner to get some information, and found out that there was no risk of a tsunami.
"And of course we'd heard just prior to that that there had been a previous earthquake. So I already had that in my mind and knew for sure that it was a second tremor."
Cassidey says these earthquakes wouldn't have caused any impact on the water, because of a couple of factors.
"They're really tiny earthquakes in the grand scheme of things, but also because the waves that typically are the largest waves, and the waves that people feel, are sheer waves, or side to side shaking. Those waves won't travel through water. It's only the P-waves that would travel through water, so you tend not to see any significant motion. Different story if it's a much larger earthquake, or if you have, for example, landslides that might be triggered that could case large waves or have an impact, but these earthquakes are just too small, and the sheer waves aren't going to be felt in this case.
There have been no reports damage or injuries caused by the earthquakes.