The first sensor for Canada’s earthquake early warning system has been installed on the coast of British Columbia, government officials announced Monday.
The sensor at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in West Vancouver will be among hundreds that will eventually give Canadians extra seconds to prepare for a major earthquake. The system is expected to be fully online by 2024.
“It will give (Canadians) those precious seconds needed to take immediate steps to protect themselves, their property and their livelihoods,” said Patrick Weiler, MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, at a press conference held at the ferry terminal.
According to Natural Resources Canada, more than 10 million Canadians living in the most earthquake-prone regions of the country will benefit from the earthquake early warning system.
The sensors will detect primary waves, or “P-waves,” generated by a quake that arrive seconds before secondary “S-waves,” which cause distinctive ground shakes.
Emergency notifications will be sent to phones of people living in those regions. Meanwhile, the system can also trigger automatic responses including slowing down trains, closing bridges and tunnels to vehicle traffic, and closing gas valves.
In B.C., the sensors will join a network that has been installed along the U.S. west coast. Washington state’s sensors went online last May, joining California and Oregon that are using similar technology.
Alison Bird, a seismologist and the liaison and outreach officer with the Earthquake Early Warning Program at Natural Resources Canada, says the next two years will be spent collecting data from the sensors as they are installed and brought online.
Data is already being fed into the system from the Horseshoe Bay sensor, she adds.
While a majority of the roughly 400 sensors will be installed along the B.C. coast, Bird says they will also be set up in parts of eastern Ontario, southern Quebec and into New Brunswick.
“This is extremely exciting technology and I am thrilled that we’re getting it in Canada,” she said.
She recommends people begin to consider what they would do if they receive an eventual alert triggered by the early warning system, and to practice those safety routines at home and in the workplace.
The early warning system has been in development for years as part of the federal government’s Emergency Management Strategy, which will cost $151 million over five years.
–With files from Kylie Stanton and Ted Chernecki