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EARTHQUAKE ROCKS QUEBEC, ONTARIO

5.0-MAGNITUDE TREMOR IS FIRST ON FAULT LINE SINCE 1998

June 23, 2010
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/23/tor-earthquake.html

Blair Business Park is evacuated after an earthquake tremor in Gloucester, near Ottawa. (Submitted by Rohit Saxena)

A 5.0-magnitude earthquake hit Quebec Wednesday, with tremors felt throughout southern Ontario and the northeastern United States.

Initial assessments measured its strength as being a magnitude 5.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The first tremor hit at 1:41 p.m. ET south of Echo Lake, Que., 61 kilometres north of Ottawa near the Ontario-Quebec border.

It was felt across southern and eastern Ontario and western Quebec, as well as in some U.S. states, including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Jersey and New York.

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Réal Rochon, mayor of Gracefield, Que., close to the epicentre, has called for emergency help from nearby Maniwaki after the quake caused significant damage to a community centre, church and hotel in his community as well as the town hall. The walls of the church collapsed and officials are concerned that the bell tower could fall.

Some local streets were closed to avoid injuries, and town employees were sent home for the day because they were so shaken up by the incident.

Rochon said he was arriving at the municipal offices when the quake hit.

"I saw the employees in a panic running out of the building," he said. I personally called 911 to ask for help. It was terrible to see."

Buildings in Toronto and Ottawa were evacuated in the minutes following the tremors.

Windows at Ottawa's city hall shattered, and a brick chimney came apart at the nearby solicitor's building, dropping bricks that fractured both inside the fireplace and outside the building.

Employees on Parliament Hill were evacuated from buildings and sent home. Crews were inspecting main and satellite buildings to be sure they were safe. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he did not feel the earthquake.

The Ontario Provincial Police reported no injuries. The Ottawa fire department said it was overwhelmed with false alarms.

"Earthquakes across [this part of] Canada are definitely rare, but we do have them," said Johanna Wagstaffe, a CBC seismologist and meteorologist.

"There are small fault lines along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario," and a "relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley," she said just minutes after the quake.

The last major earthquake on that fault line measured 5.4-magnitude in 1998, she said.

Janet Drysdale, a seismologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, said people should take precautions to protect themselves in the event of aftershocks, either by taking cover under a desk if the building is solidly constructed or leaving the building and getting a safe distance away if the building is poorly constructed.

She said that because the Ottawa area is in an earthquake zone, most of the buildings have been built to withstand this type of earthquake.

Felt like 'dynamite'
Geneviève Blais lives on Hawk Lake, about five kilometres from the earthquake's epicentre in western Quebec.

Workers in downtown Ottawa were evacuated from offices after the 5.0-magnitude struck 61 kilometres north of the city at 1:41 p.m. on Wednesday. (Roger Dubois/CBC)
She said she and her husband were doing some work on the deck when they noticed the first tremor.

"Thank God we weren't on a ladder," she told CBC News. "It felt like someone set off dynamite below us. Pictures fell from the walls and lamps got knocked off their pedestals."

Blais said she still felt rumbling below the house at 2:40 p.m., nearly an hour after the earthquake was reported.

"It sounds like thunder, but the electricity hasn't gone out," she said.

Office workers shaken
Kathleen Sullivan was working on the eighth floor of an office in downtown Toronto when the quake hit.

"It was very peculiar, because we could actually see the plants on our window shelf shaking.

"By the time we gathered in the hall and figured out it wasn't our imagination, it stopped. But it was easily a minute of things shaking."

'The bed just started to move side to side.'
—Darren Bonnici, Windsor, Ont., residentThe quake was felt as far south as Windsor, Ont., along the Canada-U.S. border.

"I was just laying in bed … and the bed just started to move side to side … just gently," said Darren Bonnici, who lives on the 10th floor of an apartment building along the city's riverfront.

"Sort of, almost like a mother would rock a baby in a crib," said Bonnici, adding the feeling lasted for about five seconds. "I thought right away it must have been an earthquake."

The earthquake was felt across Montreal and in the city's outer regions, including the Laurentians and the Chateauguay Valley.

Marcel Maheux said he felt the ground move under his house in the Laurentians just after 1:45 p.m.

"It was big enough that my house and windows shook hard," said Maheux, who lives in Rivière-Rouge. "It lasted at least 15 seconds, and it passed, but it was very, very strong."

Hugh Maynard, who lives in Ormstown, southwest of Montreal, said his house was "rocking back and forth."

Montreal police said no damage has been reported.

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