By Rob Ollikainen
Peninsula Daily News
and news sources
NEAH BAY — The magnitude-6.4 earthquake centered off the coast of Vancouver Island on Friday afternoon went largely unnoticed on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The 12:41 p.m. quake was centered about 130 miles northwest of Neah Bay at a depth of 14.3 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
“There is no tsunami watch, warning or advisory for the Washington coast,” the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
“There have been no reports of anyone from the county who may have felt the earthquake. There are no damage reports from the British Columbia area.”
Janine Bowechop, executive director of the Makah Cultural and Research Center in Neah Bay, was working at the museum when the quake occurred.
“I didn’t feel a thing,” Bowechop said. “But I’m in one of the biggest buildings in town.”
Makah Marina Manager Bob Buckingham was at his Neah Bay home during the quake and did not feel the ground shake.
Clallam Bay Fire Chief Patricia Hutson-English did not feel the quake.
“And I haven’t heard reports from anyone who felt it,” she said.
Karin Ashton, a volunteer at the Clallam Bay-Sekiu Chamber of Commerce visitors center, said: “This is the first I’ve heard about it.”
“We didn’t hear a rumble or anything,” Ashton said.
“It’s been very calm and quiet.”
Forks Mayor Bryon Monohon and Forks City Attorney Rod Fleck both said they did not notice the earthquake there.
Monohon said were no reports of the quake from Forks constituents.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the quake did not generate a tsunami but was felt as far away as Vancouver, B.C., and San Francisco, with hundreds reporting feeling it in Seattle.
While it was felt hundreds of miles away — at the Vancouver Sun newsroom in Vancouver, more than 180 miles away, lights swayed for a half-minute when the quake struck — a Royal Canadian Mounted Police dispatcher in the nearby town of Tofino, near Ucluelet, said there were no damage reports and most people barely felt it.
Seven people in Sekiu and five in Port Angeles reported to the USGS website that they felt the quake.
Single reports originated from Sekiu, Sequim and Port Townsend.
There were likewise no reports of damage in the nearest parts of Washington state, including the San Juan Islands and on the North Olympic Peninsula.
In Seattle, the state Transportation Department dispatched inspectors as a precaution to check for damage to the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the aging elevated highway along the Seattle waterfront, as well as the Deception Pass Bridge and the Highway 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington.
The quake was centered offshore 73 miles west-northwest of Ucluelet, a little less than halfway up the west coast of the island about 179 miles from Victoria.
It was initially reported as a magnitude-6.7 earthquake but was later revised.
“It looks like a quake on a secondary fault — not on the megathrust, which was our big concern,” said John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“It’s generating a fair number of aftershocks, but there’s a very small chance this will stimulate activity on the big fault on the coast.”
Brent Ward, a professor in Simon Fraser University’s department of earth sciences in Vancouver, B.C., said the quake was probably too deep to generate a tsunami.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
