VANCOUVER—A little earthquake off Vancouver Island on Wednesday night should serve as a reminder of the Big One still to come, a seismologist warns.

As the 5.8-magnitude quake shook the ocean floor, residents in the communities of Bella Bella and Port Hardy felt some minor tremors.

It was hardly big news. In fact, seismometers record an earthquake in that area about once a week, and the vast majority are not felt by humans at all.

Earthquake seismologist John Cassidy with Natural Resources Canada tweeted that nearly 300 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than five have been recorded in that region in the past 30 years.

But the question that is ever-present for residents on the West Coast is: “What if?”

Wednesday’s earthquake between Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii was about 150 kilometres from the northern tip of the fault line that will one day be responsible for the largest tsunami the region has seen in centuries.

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For experts, it’s a matter of “when” not “if.”

“We are living in earthquake country,” said Allison Bird, seismologist with Natural Resources Canada.

In preparation for the Big One, governments along the Pacific Northwest, including B.C., run annual earthquake drills.

The Cascadian Subduction Zone stretches from Vancouver Island to California. Earthquakes as strong as magnitude 9 strike along this fault line every 200 to 800 years, triggering giant tsunamis, according to a fact sheet from Natural Resources Canada. The last one happened in the year 1700.

Some of Western Canada’s 200 seismometers would detect the shaking almost instantly, but residents on Vancouver Island would only have 15 to 30 minutes of warning before tsunami waves hit their shores, according to Natural Resources Canada.

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Wednesday’s earthquake, while benign, should motivate people to be prepared, said Bird.

“We were lucky this is one of those non-threatening earthquakes. But we will have large damaging earthquakes. This is a good reminder of that.”

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