Earthquake rocks Quebec, Ontario
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 | 3:07 PM ET
CBC News
A 5.0-magnitude earthquake has hit Quebec, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with tremors felt throughout southern Ontario and the northeastern United States.
Initial assessments had measured its strength as being a magnitude 5.5.
The first tremor hit at 1:41 p.m. ET Wednesday south of Echo Lake, in an area 61 kilometres north of Ottawa near the Ontario-Quebec border, according to the U.S.G.S.
Buildings in Toronto and Ottawa were evacuated in the minutes following the tremors. Parliament Hill was also evacuated, while windows at Ottawa's city hall shattered.
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Do you have footage of the quake? Send us your photos and video. The Ontario Provincial Police reported no injuries. The Ottawa fire department said it was overwhelmed with false alarms.
"Earthquakes across [this part of] Canada are definitely rare, but we do have them," said Johanna Wagstaffe, a CBC seismologist and meteorologist.
"There are small fault lines along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario" and a "relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley," she said just minutes after the quake.
The last major earthquake on that fault line measured 5.4-magnitude in 1998, she said.
Felt like 'dynamite'
Geneviève Blais lives on Hawk Lake, about five kilometres from the earthquake's epicentre in Western Quebec.
She said she and her husband were doing some work on the deck when they noticed the first tremor.
"Thank God we weren't on a ladder. It felt like someone set off dynamite below us," she told CBC News.
"Pictures fell from the walls and lamps got knocked off their pedestals."
Blais said she still felt rumbling below the house at 2:40 p.m. nearly an hour after the earthquake was reported.
"It sounds like thunder, but the electricity hasn't gone out."
Office workers shaken
Kathleen Sullivan was working on the eighth floor of an office in downtown Toronto when the quake hit.
"It was very peculiar because we could actually see the plants on our window shelf shaking.
"By the time we gathered in the hall and figured out it wasn't our imagination, it stopped. But it was easily a minute of things shaking."
'The bed just started to move side to side.'
—Darren Bonnici, Windsor, Ont., residentThe quake was felt as far south as Windsor, Ont., along the Canada-U.S. border.
"I was just laying in bed .... and the bed just started to move side to side ... just gently," said Darren Bonnici, who lives on the 10th floor of an apartment building along the city's riverfront.
"Sort of, almost like a mother would rock a baby in a crib," said Bonnici, adding the feeling lasted for about five seconds. "I thought right away it must have been an earthquake."
The earthquake was felt across Montreal and in the city's outer regions, including the Laurentians and the Chateauguay Valley.
Marcel Maheux said he felt the ground move under his house in the Laurentians just after 1:45 p.m.
"It was big enough that my house and windows shook hard," said Maheux, who lives in Riviere-Rouge. "It lasted at least 15 seconds, and it passed, but it was very, very strong."
Hugh Maynard, who lives in Ormstown, southwest of Montreal, said his house was "rocking back and forth."
Montreal police said no damage has been reported.
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