B.C. experienced close to 2,500 earthquakes in 2022

Canada’s second largest earthquake in 2022 occurred in B.C., a 5.3 magnitude quake off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. 

The largest, a magnitude 5.5, happened in the Yukon, just across the border from B.C. and Alaska.

They were two of the roughly 2,500 earthquakes to shake the province last year, most of which occurred in the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii.

“It’s not unusual to see a magnitude 5 1/2 or six as the largest earthquake of the year,” said John Cassidy, head of the earthquake seismology section of the Geological Survey of Canada. 

“Some years we see much larger than that.”