A magnitude 5.5 earthquake hit central Canada this afternoon, rattling buildings from Windsor to Montreal and several U.S. states.
The epicentre of the quake was likely in Quebec, north of Ottawa, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and struck at 1:41 p.m.EDT. The area - known as the Charlevoix-Kamouraska zone along the St. Lawrence River - is the most active seismic zone in Eastern Canada, according to a report for the Canadian Geological Survey published earlier this year.
The same report predicted that the odds of a "structurally damaging" quake for Ottawa were about 9 per cent over the next 50 years. For Vancouver, the largest city near Canada's other most active seismic zone, those odds were estimated at 11 per cent.
An earthquake with a magniture of 5.5 is considered to be a moderate one but it can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions. At the most, it should cause only slight damage to well-designed buildings.
Twitter users react to earthquake
Contacting Twitter...
Environment Minister Jim Prentice was doing an interview with CTV at its Ottawa bureau on the 14th floor of the World Exchange Plaza in downtown Ottawa when the tremor struck.
"I was on the air and suddenly my chair was moving," he said afterwards. "Fortunately I was at the end."
The sidewalks quickly filled with workers who decided to evacuate their buildings. Within minutes of the tremor, cellphone service in Ottawa was down, possibly because callers had overloaded the system, though the exact cause was not known.
The Globe's Ottawa bureau was evacuated at 1:43 p.m. The Toronto newsroom also shook.
Twitter users as far away as Springfield, Mass. and Traverse City, Mich. reported feeling tremors. A Globe reporter in Montreal said that city also shook.
There were unconfirmed reports of minor injuries and damage. A Toronto Police spokesperson said that there have been no reports of injuries in Toronto, which was later confirmed by the city in a news release.
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