Event Time
2012-10-28 03:04:10 UTC
2012-10-27 20:04:10 UTC-07:00 at epicenter

Location
52.769°N 131.927°W depth=17.5km (10.9mi)

Nearby Cities
139km (86mi) S of Masset, Canada
202km (126mi) SSW of Prince Rupert, Canada
293km (182mi) SW of Terrace, Canada
556km (345mi) NW of Campbell River, Canada
635km (395mi) SSE of Juneau, Alaska

Technical Details

Yellow alert level for economic losses. Some damage is possible and the impact should be relatively localized. Estimated economic losses are less than 1% of GDP of Canada. Past events with this alert level have required a local or regional level response.

A TSUNAMI WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT WHICH INCLUDES THE COASTAL AREAS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA FROM THE NORTH TIP OF VANCOUVER ISLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA TO CAPE DECISION ALASKA/LOCATED 85 MILES SE OF SITKA/...

...THIS MESSAGE IS INFORMATION ONLY FOR COASTAL AREAS OF CALIFORNIA - OREGON - WASHINGTON AND BRITISH COLUMBIA FROM THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TO THE NORTH TIP OF VANCOUVER ISLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA...

..THIS MESSAGE IS INFORMATION ONLY FOR COASTAL AREAS OF ALASKA FROM CAPE DECISION ALASKA/LOCATED 85 MILES SE OF SITKA/ TO ATTU ALASKA...

A TSUNAMI WARNING MEANS... ALL COASTAL RESIDENTS IN THE WARNING AREA WHO ARE NEAR THE BEACH OR IN LOW-LYING REGIONS SHOULD MOVE IMMEDIATELY INLAND TO HIGHER GROUND AND AWAY FROM ALL HARBORS AND INLETS INCLUDING THOSE SHELTERED DIRECTLY FROM THE SEA. THOSE FEELING THE EARTH SHAKE... SEEING UNUSUAL WAVE ACTION... OR THE WATER LEVEL RISING OR RECEDING MAY HAVE ONLY A FEW MINUTES BEFORE THE TSUNAMI ARRIVAL AND SHOULD MOVE IMMEDIATELY. HOMES AND SMALL BUILDINGS ARE NOT DESIGNED TO WITHSTAND TSUNAMI IMPACTS. DO NOT STAY IN THESE STRUCTURES.

ALL RESIDENTS WITHIN THE WARNED AREA SHOULD BE ALERT FOR INSTRUCTIONS BROADCAST FROM THEIR LOCAL CIVIL AUTHORITIES. EARTHQUAKES OF THIS SIZE ARE KNOWN TO GENERATE TSUNAMIS.

AT 804 PM PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME ON OCTOBER 27 AN EARTHQUAKE WITH PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE 7.1 OCCURRED 25 MILES/40 KM SOUTH OF SANDSPIT BRITISH COLUMBIA. EARTHQUAKES OF THIS SIZE ARE KNOWN TO GENERATE TSUNAMIS. IF A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED THE WAVES WILL FIRST REACH LANGARA ISLAND BRITISH COLUMBIA AT 916 PM PDT ON OCTOBER 27. ESTIMATED TSUNAMI ARRIVAL TIMES AND MAPS ALONG WITH SAFETY RULES AND OTHER INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEB SITE WCATWC.ARH.NOAA.GOV.

Mitt Romney cancelled one of three campaign stops this Sunday in reaction to the recent weather threat presented by hurricane "Sandy" which is predicted to affect parts of the eastern seaboard, thus stopping Romney from appearing at the Virginia Beach rally he had previously scheduled.

Meanwhile, President Obama has already been briefed on the storm as of late Wednesday and east coast residents are urged to monitor local weather reports for what is being called a "super storm".

With Sandy's wide wind field of 550 plus miles merging with a polar air mass over the eastern US, things could get pretty rough.

The storm also has the potential to bring massive amounts of rain and snow.

An excerpt from the New York Times reads, "The storm is also expected to dump as much as 10 inches of rain in the area where it makes landfall and to create a significant storm surge that will lead to flooding throughout a large coastal area, perhaps most seriously in Delaware, forecasters said.

A loud, unexplained noise set off dozens of calls to the Niagara County Sheriff's Office Friday morning after residents reported hearing an explosion so loud it shook their homes. YNN's Meg Rossman reveals the source behind that explosion and why there's no mystery behind that mystery boom.

It was the mystery boom heard 'round the world - or at least Niagara County that caused the Niagara County Sheriff's Office to field dozens of calls similar to this exchange from concerned residents:

Tropical Storm 'Ofel' (international name: Son-Tinh) left at least eight people dead and nine missing on Friday before heading away from the country's area of responsibility toward Vietnam and southern China.

National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Executive Director Benito Ramos said the fatalities included an 88-year-old woman who allegedly died of hypothermia and 77-year-old man hit by a falling tree, both in the central Philippines.

NDRRMC reported three persons drowned in separate incidents, two children killed by a falling tree and a girl buried in a landslide in separate incidents in the central and southern Philippines.

Typhoon Son Tinh is moving fast in the East Sea towards central Vietnam and is forecast to hit the area tonight if its current route remains unchanged, said the National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center.

With a speed ofn about 25 km, Son Tinh is the fastest storm that has affected Vietnam in the past 10 years, said agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat who is also head of the Central Steering Board for Flood and Storm Prevention and Control.

The storm is expected to be 160 km east of the coast of Nghe An and Thua Thien-Hue, with winds of 103-132 kph and gusts of over 132 kph this evening, the center reported.

Dozens of whales beached themselves and died on North Andaman Island in the Bay of Bengal this week, the first time that such a large number of whales have died in the area.

Scientists are still trying to figure out why.

Individual whales have occasionally beached themselves in the Andamans, but never before in these numbers, said Samir Acharya, president of Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology, a nongovernmental organization based in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. "This happens once in a while, every year or every second year," he said, but "the numbers this time are really large."

A group of 41 short-finned pilot whales were found near Elizabeth Bay, on the west coast of North Andaman Island, by local fisherman on Oct 21, said Ajai Saxena, additional chief conservator of wildlife in Port Blair, in a telephone interview on Friday. The whales are four to six meters (about 12 to 18 feet) long each and as heavy as four tons, he said.

Officials who conducted a post-mortem investigation on one of the whales did not find any unnatural cause of death, Mr. Saxena said. The 41 whales are being buried in pits on the beach.

Whales migrate in a group, called a pod, to the cold waters of Antarctica because of an abundance of food, Mr. Acharya said, and migrate back to warmer waters during winter to mate and give birth. They use sonar for direction, emitting sounds and using their echos to judge the depth of the water and the direction they are traveling.

Back in August, an enormous floating mass of pumice was spotted in the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand. New evidence of changes on the seafloor confirms an erupting undersea volcano created the sprawling rock raft.

New Zealand scientists aboard the research vessel Tangaroa recently mapped the underwater volcano, Havre Seamount, which erupted on July 19 and was thought to have sent pumice rocks floating over a stretch of ocean 8,500 square miles (22,000 square kilometers). Now, the scientists say they detected a new volcanic cone - a feature built during an eruption - at Havre Seamount, reaching within 3,600 feet (1,100 meters) of the surface.

(Pumice forms when volcanic lava cools quickly. Gas gets trapped inside as the lava hardens, resulting in porous lightweight rocks that can float.)

An appalling combination of fog and winds around England's coast this week have created terrible conditions for migrating birds, with some fishermen reporting to the RSPB the deaths of many exhausted and disorientated 'garden' birds plunging into the sea around their vessels.

England's east coast, from Northumberland to Kent, has seen the arrival of many birds, including redwings, fieldfares, bramblings and blackbirds, perhaps numbering in their millions this week. The RSPB believes these birds may be the lucky survivors which have managed to cross the North Sea, but the Society concedes many others may have perished before making landfall.

New York has just been declared a state of emergency in advance of Hurricane Sandy which is expected to hit the East Coast late on Sunday, with the possibility it will halt subways and ground planes. Governor Cuomo said the declaration allows the 62 counties to help localities better prepare for the storm with access to federal funding and the national guard.

Hurricane Sandy is looking more and more ominous as it makes its way towards the East Coast, and local authorities are preparing for the worst, predicting at least $1billion in damage and the possibility and up to 375,000 New Yorkers could be evacuated. Meteorologists expect a natural horror show of high wind, heavy rain, extreme tides and maybe even snow on higher ground beginning early on Sunday.