Earthquake Shakes Pacific Northwest Tremor Felt From Canada To Central Oregon, As Far East As Yakima

In a sharp reminder that western Washington sits astride the seismically active Pacific Rim, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 rumbled through the Seattle-Tacoma area Saturday night.

Though no injuries or major damage were immediately reported, the quake was felt from Canada to central Oregon and as far east as Yakima, Wash.

The tremor struck at 7:11 PST, said Willis Jacobs of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

“It was widely recorded,” said Deiter Weichert of the Pacific Geoscience Centre in Victoria. “It was recorded by all our monitoring stations on Vancouver Island and up the West Coast, even to the Rocky Mountain Trench.”

An aftershock registering 1.7 occurred at 7:51 p.m. and another with a magnitude of 1.6 hit at 8:46 p.m.

Seismologists at the University of Washington said it was the most significant earthquake to hit the area in 30 years, when a 6.5 temblor caused substantial damage around Puget Sound.

The epicenter was placed about 8 miles deep, halfway between Seattle and Tacoma near the town of Federal Way.

Seismologists said it was caused by movement laterally along a fault, and it was not a subduction-type quake, in which the leading edge of one tectonic plate dives under another. A subduction quake has long been anticipated in the Northwest as capable of an 8.0 or greater magnitude.

Skyscrapers swayed in downtown Seattle and grocery stores across a wide area lost items off shelves. The Washington State ferry dock at Vashon Island in Puget Sound was reported to have been damaged.

Staffers at the Washington state Department of Emergency Services said there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Dave Weaver, a free-lance photographer and southern California native who lives about 15 miles south of Seattle in Federal Way, said he fell down and pictures were knocked off the walls of his third-floor apartment.

Drew Graham, a staffer at KGMI Radio in Bellingham, said the tremor “just made a couple things in here swing around, things that were hanging.”

Scientists said aftershocks would probably be felt in the coming days.

Washington has had major quakes this century. In 1949 a quake centered near Olympia registered 7.1, about the size of the quake that hit San Francisco in October of 1989. In 1965, a quake measuring 6.5 hit the Seattle-Tacoma area.