Updated: Earthquake felt in Prince George

Update 6:00 PM

Dr. Fei Tong, an Assistant Professor of Seismic Engineering at UNBC, told My PG Now he doesn’t think “the public needs to worry or be concerned.”

The most noteworthy part of the earthquake, he said, was its depth; or lack there of.

The quake was measured just 5km under the surface, all earthquakes from 0-70km deep are considered to be shallow.

Shallow earthquakes’ seismic waves have less distance to travel to the surface, and are often more violent – however the one felt in Prince George was very light, measured at a 3.4 magnitude and an intensity two or three.

Dr. Tong also said if the earthquake was much bigger and damage was done to buildings and structures around town, there still wouldn’t be a need to panic.

Buildings built to code are designed with an impact point, created to take the brunt of an earthquake instead of the entire structure.

“Engineers carefully design these structures such that this damage will not cause the overall collapse of the building, this damage will be repaired” he said.

Dr. Tong reiterated that Prince George is at an extremely low risk of any damages from earthquakes.

EARTHQUAKE Mag=3.4 on 21 Sep at 15:07 PDT.

Details : https://t.co/lfPhqZra2q

32 km SW of Prince George, BC

— Earthquakes Canada (@CANADAquakes) September 21, 2022

Update 5:00 PM

“It was lightly felt by residents,”

That’s from Earthquakes Canada Seismologist, Taimi Mulder after a magnitude 3.4 quake 32 kilometres southwest of Prince George occurred just after 3 pm today (Wednesday).

Mulder told MyPGNow.com that earthquakes of this magnitude typically don’t cause any damage – it usually has to reach 5.5 or higher in order for that to occur.

“There have been earthquakes of that magnitude in the past. There is one that happened in 1986 that was a magnitude 5.4 but since then, they have typically been in the 3.5 range.”

EmergencyInfoBC and Earthquakes Canada are both reporting the tremor was a magnitude 3.4. No serious damages have been reported, and none are expected.

“The building code designs are such now that buildings won’t collapse and this is just around the area where you might start to see the damage. In general, there is not too much worry for residents of Prince George,” added Mulder.

In addition, Mulder mentioned this is a pretty rare occurrence for the PG area.

“Earthquakes are not common in that area, however, they are not unknown. It’s not unreasonable to have an earthquake of this magnitude but they are few and far between – probably once a decade.”

Original Story: 3:20pm:

Where were you at 3:07 pm?

A rare earthquake hit Prince George this afternoon, sending a brief tremor through homes and workplaces.

The quake is currently estimated to be magnitude 4.1, low on the Richter scale.

With files from Brendan Pawliw