Northern_Clips' Circumpolar Blog: North & earthquakes in the Yukon & NWT

Monday, 18 January 2010

North & earthquakes in the Yukon & NWT

So thinking about the recent earthquake in Haiti ...

Several years ago I was living and working in Inuvik when late one night the building I lived in was rocked and swayed by a minor earthquake... this certainly concerned me as the apartment house was one of many in town supported not by a foundation, but perched on pilings that amplified the movement of the earth.

This happened around the time that many of the buildings in Inuvik were being connected to natural gas pipelines, known to often fill buildings with gas during an earthquake disaster potentially causing explosions and fires adding greatly to such a disaster.

This lead me to doing a little research and I discovered (from the Earthquakes Canada website) that the Yukon and the Western NWT (including Inuvik) are in an earthquake zone.

I found this EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS CHECKLIST FOR MEDIA on the web...

and this from the Earthquakes Canada website
The Yukon, western Northwest Territories Earthquakes of the last 5 years

http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/recent_eq/maps/images/yt_wnt_e5y_e.l.jpg

Rock and Roll in the N.W.T.: The 1985 Nahanni Earthquakes
The earthquake sequence amazed both the general public and the earth science community. People in the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and southeastern Alaska were startled by the vibrations. Local radio stations, newspapers and police departments were swamped with callers asking for details of the tremor. Seismologists were astonished by the size of the events. All across Canada their seismographs recorded strong ground motions.

Is there an NWT & Yellownife earthquake preparedness plan?

"Quake Quiz" From San Francisco's Office Of Emergency Management