Important Takeaways:

• A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck off the Pacific Coast Tuesday, generating shaking felt as far as Washington state — 375 miles from the epicenter.
• The tremblor hit at a depth of roughly six miles, striking 130 miles west of Port McNeill in northwest Vancouver Island around 12:37am ET.
• Three Washington residents in the towns of Greenbank, Forks and Sequim reported shaking from the quake, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
• They categorized the tremors as level two on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) Scale, which measures the intensity of seismic shaking.
• A score of two indicates ‘weak’ shaking that is typically ‘felt by only a few persons at rest, especially on upper floors or buildings,’ the USGS states.
• Although earthquakes of this size have been known to cause slight damage to buildings and other structures, there have been no reports of damages or injuries yet.
• This was the third quake to impact Washington state over the last four days.
• The first was a magnitude 4.8 that struck about 15 miles northeast of the coastal community of Sechelt, British Columbia just before 1:30pm Friday.
• Several smaller aftershocks followed, but there were no reports of damage.
• On Saturday, a magnitude 3.4 earthquake struck about four miles south-southeast of the Lea Hill neighborhood of Auburn, Washington.
• Many earthquakes in Washington state stem from the boundary between two tectonic plates: the Juan de Fuca and the North American.
• The Juan de Fuca plate is gradually subducting, or sliding beneath, the North American continent. The boundary where this occurs is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ).

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