A minor earthquake struck in eastern Quebec at around lunchtime on Wednesday with the tremors being felt as far away as Ottawa and Montreal.
Earthquakes Canada reported that a magnitude 3.7 earthquake struck in the Rivière-Rouge area of Quebec.
“There are no reports of damage, and none would be expected,” the agency noted.
People on X, formerly known as Twitter, reported feeling tremors as far away as Ottawa, which is more than 100 km away from the epicentre.
Earthquakes Canada’s website also shows reports came from across a wide swathe of Quebec and Ontario between Trois-Rivieres and Ottawa, including a large number of people in Montreal.
Residents who felt the earthquake also posted descriptions of how it felt on the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre’s website, with someone in Joliette, Que., suggesting it “felt like a huge truck on the road.”
Someone in Gloucester, Ont., which is 138 km from the earthquake’s epicentre, described it as having an “initial strong jolt for 2-3 seconds then mild shaking/vibration for 45-60 secs.”
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While it is not common for people in Ottawa to feel an earthquake, it is also not unheard of either as Earthquakes Canada says they occur frequently in the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Valley, in New Brunswick, and the offshore region to the south of Newfoundland.
That said, most of Canada’s earthquakes occur along the active plate boundaries off British Columbia’s coast, and along the northern Cordillera (southwestern corner of the Yukon Territory and in the Richardson Mountains and Mackenzie Valley), as well as in arctic margins (including Nunavut and northern Quebec).
According to Earthquakes Canada, the Geological Survey of Canada records and locates more than 4,000 earthquakes in Canada each year, which averages out to 11 per day.
While that seems like a lot, only 50 of the 4,000 (or around one per week) are strong enough for people to feel.
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