The Skeena
A YouTube video with more than three thousands views claims to have information about a “magnitude 6.5 earthquake” striking near Kitimat.
There’s just one problem: the quake never happened.
“False report!!” writes one commenter. “I live 50 km north of Kitimat and did not feel a thing…but the report sure got people chattering on Facebook. I love the images in this YouTube video showing cracked pavement and people taking selfies. Those pictures are definitely NOT from tiny little Kitimat.”
News about the quake was apparently triggered by a computer glitch from the United States Geological Survey. The Globe and Mail reported that “there was no earthquake 165 kilometres southeast of Kitimat on Monday afternoon.”
But the YouTube account Natural Phenomena & News apparently didn’t get the memo. Its video about the apparent Skeena quake shows photos of cracked and broken streets that definitely weren’t taken in Kitimat.
“It certainly had social media around here buzzing yesterday,” one local commenter says of the whole thing. “It was kinda funny actually to hear people talking about this massive earthquake that they never felt.”
