Reports of earthquake in B.C. Monday appear to have been sent in error

Reports of a 6.5 magnitude earthquake off the west coast of B.C. Monday afternoon appear to have been sent out in error.

The U.S. Geological Survey tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that a preliminary 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck at a depth of 15 km about 164 km south-southeast of Kitimat.

However, the report was quickly removed from the USGS website.

Global News has reached out to the USGS for more information.

According to The Canadian Press, a computer glitch appears to have led to the erroneous report.

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Alison Bird of Natural Resources Canada told the agency the automated system is not perfect at processing data and it’s possible two small earthquakes at different locations were detected as one event.

2:18 Canada not on board with U.S. earthquake early warning system

Emergency Management BC confirmed to Global News that they saw the tweet and noticed the event disappeared very quickly.

They said no one at the organization received any report of an earthquake in B.C. Monday and they suspect it was sent in error.