Sunday, May 06, 2007

Tsunami Hazard Zone

As Vancouver Island's West Coast is very much the edge of the Pacific Ocean it's also in very real danger of tsunami's. The ocean floor under the Pacific is particularly prone to earthquakes and the San Andreas faultline runs a few miles off of the coast. Indeed, in 1964 Port Alberni had 364 buildings destroyed when a Tsunami hit the town.

The Provincial Government, conscious that so much of the coastline is at risk have found a solution to the problem. The solution is a handful of blue & white signs. One shows a picture of a guy climbing a mountain to get out of the way of a huge wave. The other simply points in the direction you should go to find a mountain.

It's worth bearing in mind that the whole peninsula that Tofino sits on is pretty low-level, the mountains you see in the photos are not on this peninsula. Nonetheless, the Government have done their bit and the lawsuits should be less when the inevitable eventually happens.

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