Earthquake rattles Ottawa area

An earthquake rattled Ottawa, eastern Ontario and western Quebec during the lunch hour Tuesday afternoon.

Earthquakes Canada reported a magnitude 3.9 earthquake struck at approximately 12:36 p.m., with the epicentre located 20 kilometres northeast of Shawville, Que.

CTV News Ottawa received reports of people feeling the earthquake in Ottawa, Fitzroy Harbour, Richmond, Constance Bay and west to Pembroke and Otter Lake, Que.

“The building was vibrating and it sounded like a large truck was going by at the beginning. It increased to where we felt the vibration in buildings,” Linda in Constance Bay said in an email to CTV News.

Lise in the Otter Lake area said in an email, “the house was shaking and it scared us.”

Lise said neighbours reported pictures fell off the walls of their homes.

Natural Resources Canada seismic analyst Chris Boucher said a magnitude 3.9 earthquake would be felt by “quite a few people,” but it’s not expected to cause any damage.

“You’d expect some rattling a little bit. Maybe it would be well felt,” Boucher said. “For something to cause damage, generally, you’re looking at something around a magnitude, which would be about 10 times the size of what was felt today.”

Shawville Mayor Bill McCleary said the municipality had not received any reports of major damage following the earthquake.

“No damage, as of now. Maybe down the road they’ll discover a crack in the foundation. Nothing major, nobody’s hurt. Everything is good,” McClearly said Tuesday afternoon.

McClearly was working at the sugar shack at the time of the earthquake.

“We were finishing up our maple syrup production for the year. What I was experienced was just a loud bang,” McCleary told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron.

“I didn’t notice any shaking after. My partner that I do it with was outside and he said the ground kind of rumbled for 15 to 20 seconds.”

Earthquakes Canada’s website shows people from Toronto, Barrie Kingston, Peterborough, Orillia, North Bay and Montreal also reported feeling the earthquake.

Shawville is located 77 km west of downtown Ottawa.

In January, a magnitude 2.8 earthquake was reported in western Quebec, across the Ottawa River from Hawkesbury, Ont. On Jan. 5, a magnitude 3.0 earthquake was detected 76 km northwest of Maniwaki, Que.

In 2010, a magnitude 5 earthquake on June 23 rattled Ottawa, eastern Ontario and western Quebec. The epicentre was located in Val-des-Bois, Que.

Boucher says the Ottawa area is part of the Western Quebec Seismic Zone, which is a “moderately active seismic zone.”

“We might have about a dozen felt earthquakes every year,” Boucher said, adding the last damaging earthquake in the Shawville area was in 2013 and the Ottawa-Gatineau area in 2010.

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