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Earthquake hits off Vancouver Island

Shaking registers 6.4 on Richter scale; no damage reported

Did you feel it?

That shaking you may have felt on Friday afternoon was a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that hit at an epicenter of about 289 kilometres northwest of Victoria. Pegged at a depth of 23 kilometres below sea level, the quake hit at about 12:41 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9 according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Earthquakes Canada confirmed the information, but had posted the quake at 5.7 and 6.7 on the Richter Scale at various times.

The quake was felt as far as Pemberton, where Nigel Protter, the interim administrator of the Lower Stl'atl'imx Tribal Council, was in a meeting with staff when the building started to shake.

"We were having a finance meeting in our boardroom and all of a sudden I felt queasy," he said. "We all looked at each other and the blinds were moving. Nobody said anything and so I finally said, 'did you feel that?' They all looked at me, nodded and we all thought we were feeling sick. We all thought we were getting head-rushes."

No damage has yet been reported from the quake, which was felt right across Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

The quake's intensity was second to the Vancouver Island earthquake of 1946, which registered a 7.3 on the Richter scale. That one caused significant damage on Vancouver Island, according to Natural Resources Canada. Hitting at an epicenter in central Vancouver Island, it destroyed three-quarters of the chimneys in communities including Cumberland, Union Bay and Courtenay.