Magnitude 6.4 earthquake hits southwestern Canada and Vancouver Island

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck southwestern Canada near Vancouver on Thursday.

The epicenter of the quake was about 130 miles from Tofino, a small county on Vancouver Island in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Canada, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tofino is about 130 miles west of Vancouver. The depth of the quake was about 6.2 miles.

According to the study, a population of approximately 2,000 people in Tofino would be exposed to mild tremors.

The rumble was first detected just after 8 a.m. local time. The magnitude was initially estimated at 6.5 by the USGS, before being later reduced to 6.4 minutes.

In the hours that followed, two more earthquakes struck in the same area: a 5.4 magnitude quake struck about an hour later and another 4.7 magnitude quake struck around 10:30 a.m. local time, the USGS reported.

According to the Canadian government, an earthquake with a magnitude of more than 6 is considered major and could cause damage to “poorly constructed buildings and other structures” up to a distance of about 100 kilometers.

Dara Goldberg, a geophysicist and researcher with the USGS, said there are “well over 100” magnitude 6 earthquakes recorded each year.

According to the USGS, there was no risk of a tsunami after the earthquake.

The quake comes less than a week after a magnitude 5 quake struck the same area Friday morning. The earlier quake was also centered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Canada, nearly 150 miles from Tofino, and had the same recorded depth.

Goldberg said the latest series of earthquakes occurred where the Pacific Plate and the Juan de Fuca Plate meet. “When you have two tectonic plates meeting, it’s always more prone to earthquakes than, say, the middle of the continent,” she said.

Earthquakes also tend to happen in sequences, she said. “You have these stresses, these pressures that build up at the boundary between two tectonic plates,” she said. An earthquake happens “when part of it slips, when it slides one plate against the other.”

A 6.4 magnitude quake, which is of medium magnitude, could trigger smaller quakes that “happen along the edges,” she said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Today’s earthquake in Canada west of Vancouver measured 6.4