5.8 quake strikes off western Canadian coast-About two dozen quakes with magnitude 4 or above have hit area in past 48 hours
Pastor Dale Morgan
5.8 quake strikes off western Canadian coast-About two dozen quakes
with magnitude 4 or above have hit area in past 48 hours*
* Story Highlights
* Epicenter is almost 300 miles west-northwest of Vancouver
* About two dozen quakes with magnitude 4 or above have hit area in
past 48 hours
* Victoria is main city of Vancouver Island
(CNN) -- A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck at sea just west of Vancouver
Island, Canada, on Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The temblor's epicenter was about 95 miles (153 kilometers)
west-southwest of Port Hardy, British Columbia, and about 293 miles (472
kilometers) west-northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia.
It struck at 5:37 a.m. (8:37 a.m. ET), the USGS said, and hit at a depth
of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers).
The USGS originally reported the quake at 6.1 magnitude.
Thursday's quake was the latest of about two dozen temblors of magnitude
4 or above to strike in the area in the past 48 hours, according to the
USGS. A 5.2-magnitude quake was the largest of those, striking the same
area Wednesday.
"We're having a series in that area," Julie Martinez, a USGS
geophysicist said. She said the number of earthquakes was not unusual.
"These earthquakes are too far offshore to be felt on land and too small
to generate a tsunami," Natural Resources Canada said on its earthquakes
Web site.
Vancouver Island sits off Canada's west coast. Its main city of Victoria
sits at its southern end.