Now Im scared....I read they are predicting this could happen within the next 8 days. VANCOUVER — Anacla, a First Nations village on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is moving up, heading for higher, safer ground. A new big house has been built 50 metres up from the pounding surf of Pachena Bay. And there are plans to replace the 49 houses on the beach, which could be swallowed by the sea with just minutes notice. It has happened before, says Tom Happynook, a hereditary chief with the Huu-ay-Aht First Nations, recalling how the village in the bay vanished in 1700, when a quake kicked up giant waves off Canadas West Coast. The village was completely wiped out, says Happynook. Scientists say the strain is building again beneath the sea floor as enormous tectonic plates push against each other about 100 kilometres offshore. A monster earthquake rivalling the one that devastated Japan last March is all but a certainly on North Americas Pacific coast, they say. No one can say when it will occur, but when it does a huge and powerful wall of water could hit the outer coast areas within 30 to 45 minutes. Theyll be no time to collect the family photos, says geologist John Clague, who says Canada — and Canadians — could learn much from Japans triple disaster that occurred a year ago Sunday. More than 16,000 people in Japan died in the aftermath of the magnitude 9 earthquake, most of them from the tsunami that rolled ashore sweeping away cars, trucks and boats. Waves surged into homes, and reduced communities to rubble. The tsunami also crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station, leading to meltdowns, explosions and leaks that sent radioactive isotopes drifting around the globe. One of the biggest lessons from the Japanese tragedy is that what can wrong, will go wrong, says Clague, director of the centre for natural hazard research at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. You have to anticipate the worst-case scenario, he says, and have plans in place to deal with it. The Japanese are famous for their earthquake preparedness, but things went terribly wrong as last years quake unfolded. Authorities and scientists had overlooked evidence that Japans northeast coastline was prone to large quakes and tsunamis, and missed the chance to strengthen their defences and improve reactor safety. And while thousands of people did outrun the surging water, many wasted time before fleeing to higher ground — one survey found that 40 per cent of people who had received a tsunami warning waited before evacuating. But plenty of things did go right, says Garry Rogers, a research scientist and quake expert at Natural Resources Canada. Loss of life due to collapsing buildings was the least of Japans problems, showing the value of tightening building codes to ensure structures can withstand intense shaking. Building codes work, says Rogers. So did Japans early warning system that automatically stopped high-speed trains in their tracks, and issued a tsunami alert within three minutes of quake. It didnt work perfectly, but it worked, says Rogers, who would like to see a similar early warning system in Canada.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 08:33:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015