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QuakeImpact

Part 1

The shaking

Violent shaking can make it difficult to stand or cross a room. Falling objects are an immediate danger, and aftershocks can return after buildings are damaged.

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Violent shaking makes it difficult to stand or move

The province’s planning scenario starts with sound: a low rumble like a freight train, heard before anything is felt. The shaking can knock people closest to it off their feet, while unsecured objects fall or fly through the air. Crossing a room may not be possible.

Shaking may last seconds or minutes, depending on the earthquake. The two scenarios compares the duration and intensity of the earthquakes used for planning here.

Drop before the shaking drops you, cover your head and neck, and hold on until it stops. Do not run outside: falling and flying objects severely injure or kill many of the people who try.

Where there is no sturdy furniture nearby, crawl to the nearest interior corner or wall. The province publishes the same three steps for someone using a wheelchair, a walker or a cane, with the wheels locked in place of the drop.

What strong earthquake shaking looks like

Most people in Metro Vancouver have never felt a major earthquake. These two recordings show how fast the shaking arrives and how long it lasts.

Inside an Anchorage classroom

A fixed classroom camera during the magnitude 7.0 earthquake at Anchorage, Alaska, in 2018. The shaking reaches full strength in seconds, which is the reason to take cover where you are rather than move.

Inside the Sendai Mediatheque

The magnitude 9.1 earthquake off northeast Japan in 2011, recorded inside a modern building at Sendai. The shaking runs on for minutes, with ceilings and suspended fixtures moving overhead while people hold on under desks.

Aftershocks return to already damaged places

An earthquake does not end when the shaking stops. The mainshock is followed by aftershocks, which can begin within minutes of it and carry on for months.

In September 2010 a major earthquake struck near Christchurch, a city on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. No one died directly. What followed was a long run of smaller earthquakes, thousands of them. One of those, arriving five and a half months after the first, killed 185 people.

  1. 4 September 20104.35am

    Magnitude 7.1, west of the city, with most people at home. Roads split, chimneys came down, buildings were badly damaged. No one died directly.

  2. The next 171 days

    Canterbury did not stop shaking. More than 4,300 aftershocks were recorded before February. The sequence looked like it was fading.

  3. 22 February 201112.51pm

    Magnitude 6.2, beneath the Port Hills a few kilometres from the centre and shallower than the first, at lunchtime on a working day. Buildings collapsed, cliffs gave way and liquefaction came up through the roads. It is classed as an aftershock of the September earthquake.

  4. After that

    The next aftershock came within two minutes, a magnitude 5.8 after thirteen minutes, a magnitude 5.9 before two hours were up. More than 400 of about magnitude 3 or greater were recorded in the first day, and by August 2012 the sequence had produced more than 11,000 earthquakes of magnitude 2 or greater.

Every one of those later earthquakes arrives at buildings that have already been through the first. Whether a damaged building is safe to go back into takes an engineer’s inspection, and the City of Vancouver warns its own residents that repair will be prolonged, because the demand for building assessment and trade services will be heavy even for buildings with only minor damage. Buildings covers who does that work and how long people may wait.

Published estimates stop at the first earthquake. The federal scenario catalogue leaves aftershocks out of its damage and casualty figures, and the province’s headline numbers count only direct damage from the mainshock.

What shaking sets in motion

Ground conditions and construction shape the immediate damage. Some of the most serious effects begin as the shaking ends.

What you can do

  • Know the two things to do in the first seconds. Drop, cover and hold on. Do not run outside. Aftershocks get the same response, and there will be more than one.
  • Look up the ground under the places you spend time. The regional maps cover the western municipalities street by street and are free to read. Ground conditions says how to read them, and which municipalities they do not reach yet.
The full preparedness plan

Sources on this page

Numbered in the order they are cited. Each entry links back to where it is used.

  1. [1]ReportProvincial Earthquake Immediate Response StrategyMinistry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, Province of BC · 2022Open the document ↗
  2. [2]ReportDisaster and Climate Risk and Resilience Assessment: Provincial ReportEMCR and Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions, Province of BC · 2025Open the document ↗
  3. [3]ReportEarthquake and Tsunami Preparedness GuidePreparedBC / EMCR, Province of BC · 2024Open the document ↗
  4. [4]Analogue eventThe February 2011 Christchurch earthquake and its aftershocksNZ History / Manatū Taonga, Ministry for Culture and HeritageOpen the document ↗
  5. [5]Analogue eventThe Canterbury sequence in the context of global earthquake statisticsGNS Science / Natural Hazards CommissionOpen the document ↗
  6. [6]Analogue eventDarfield earthquake event storyGeoNet / GNS Science · 2010Open the document ↗
  7. [7]Analogue eventSeptember 2010 Canterbury (Darfield) earthquakeNZ History / Manatū Taonga, Ministry for Culture and Heritage · 2010Open the document ↗
  8. [8]Analogue eventBannister & Gledhill, "Evolution of the 2010–2012 Canterbury earthquake sequence"GNS Science, in the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 55 · 2012Open the document ↗
  9. [9]ReportHazard & Risk Explorer, Earthquake and Introduction chaptersCity of Vancouver (ArcGIS StoryMaps) · 2025Open the document ↗
  10. [10]ReportHazard Fact Sheet (English)City of Vancouver · 2024Open the document ↗
  11. [11]DatasetCanada's National Earthquake Scenario CatalogueGeological Survey of Canada / NRCan · 2021Open the document ↗
  12. [12]DatasetMetro Vancouver Seismic Microzonation Mapping ProjectWestern University / ICLR, with BC EMCR · 2017Open the document ↗