Originally Posted by Surrey Expat

I was in Surrey during the last one and it felt like a truck hit the building. The epicenter was around Seattle. Called the family in Chilliwack and they did not feel a thing. Our property sitting atop gravel, the gravel seemed to absorb the shocks.

There is a possibility of a one in 200 earthquake, it could hit next week or in who knows how many years. Although it is in the back of many peoples mind, it does not preoccupy day to day life. There is a risk Mount Baker will erupt, there is a flood risk in the Fraser basin every year. Was there not an earthquake in the UK earlier this year? Floods in some areas as well. We're not immune to disasters wherever we are. The biggest risk areas in an earthquake are built up suburban areas, Richmond, which would disappear and coastal areas hit be a resulting tsunami.

Then we could get run over crossing the street.

Originally Posted by getoutofbritainquick

By the way Richmond is mainly at risk from liquefaction during an earthquake rather than tsunami (but I am not going there again!!!!!!!).

Originally Posted by Steve_P

I remember seeing a show on TV in the recent past about tsunamis and what struck me was that they figure that a very large chunk of the island of Hawaii is at some point going to break off and tumble in to the ocean and when it does the resulting tsunami will wipe out everything on every coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Originally Posted by MB-Realtor

isn't the same thing predicted for one of the Canary Islands too, if the ridge falls it will devastate coastline all around the Atlantic.

It'll have to be a bloody big tsunami to get me

Originally Posted by Steve_P

I remember seeing a show on TV in the recent past about tsunamis and what struck me was that they figure that a very large chunk of the island of Hawaii is at some point going to break off and tumble in to the ocean and when it does the resulting tsunami will wipe out everything on every coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Originally Posted by Steve_P

I remember seeing a show on TV in the recent past about tsunamis and what struck me was that they figure that a very large chunk of the island of Hawaii is at some point going to break off and tumble in to the ocean and when it does the resulting tsunami will wipe out everything on every coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Originally Posted by mjwalker007

Could be worse, you could be on the chunk that breaks off !!!

Originally Posted by PMM

.. since the UK had a 5.2 ... so it means they have had a higher magnitude earthquake that the Vancouver area has had in the last 30 years.

Originally Posted by gryphea

I was talking to a guy at work at length today about earthquake risk hazard and he told me more details about Vancouver earthquake risk, and some of the preventative measures that have been undertaken recently (preventing damage from a 7 pretty much under Vancouver, or a 9 off shore from VI). Bascially codes really only got detailed in 1985 and have got more stringent with each successive revision with the last code upadte being 2005. Its quite interesting as I knew about earthquake risk in general on that coast but I didn't know the details about rupture, size, frequency etc. He used to live in Vancouver and used to have a top ten list of buildings he would not like to be in if/when it strikes!!!

He says that areas of the city will suffer much more than others due to thicknesses of underlying soils and I asked whether that impacted house prices. He said he didn't think so, but I am still interested in that idea.

I have never heard anyone mention earthquake risk or hazard on here and I wondered if you lot from Vancouver ever give it a moment's notice? Do the schools have drills? Or the work places?

Gryph