Canada’s West Coast will be cleaved, crushed and submerged by an earthquake and tsunami similar to the twin disasters that decimated parts of Japan.
It could happen today. Or 100 years from now. One certainty: It will be The Big One.
“Statistically, we’re about due,’’ says Stephen Johnston, professor of tectonics at the University of Victoria’s school of earth and ocean sciences.
The frequency of The Big One is about every 300 to 500 years on the West Coast; the last one was in 1700. Despite cutting-edge science, earthquakes cannot be easily predicted, says Johnston.
“We had the Chilean earthquake last year, the Sumatran earthquake on Boxing Day 2004 and we, on the West Coast, are waiting for the Cascadia subduction zone to rupture in the same fashion,” the geologist says.
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