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So, That Was an Earthquake.
Earth shakes, stuff falls down. Photo by Christopher Drost/Torontoist.
Our readers and staff all felt the ground shake just before 1:45 p.m.—at University and Dundas, Christie and St. Clair West, Queen and Dovercourt, Church and Wellington, Bay and Bloor, in Ajax, in Scarborough. The Post‘s Twitter says colleagues in Ottawa felt it, too.
Our updates, in reverse-chronological order, are after the jump.
3:32 PM: One more very important note: t-shirts commemorating this momentous occasion are now available. Go internet, go!
3:09 PM: 680 News is reporting that aftershocks are considered unlikely. (Also, the quake has been downgraded a bit, to 5.0.) So, hopefully, this little adventure has come to a close. Back to fake lakes and real soccer football contests, everyone!
2:50 PM: A bit by way of background: according to the United States Geological Survey, “Earthquakes cause damage in the [Western Quebec Seismic Zone] about once a decade. Smaller earthquakes are felt three or four times a year.” Also, the Globe is noting that a report issued for the Canadian Geological Survey “predicted that the odds of a ‘structurally damaging. quake for Ottawa were about nine per cent over the next fifty years.
2:08 PM: According to the United States Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program, the quake was a 5.5 magnitude one. It started at 1:41:42 p.m., was centered near the Ontario–Quebec border, and its epicentre was closer to Montreal and Ottawa than to Toronto:
2:03 PM: Plenty of buildings were evacuated in the immediate aftermath of the quake—here’s the crowd ushered outside of one at Yonge and Eglinton, sent in by reader Corey Diamond.
Photo by Corey Diamond.
Written by David Topping and Hamutal Dotan. Reporting by the entire Torontoist staff.