Sometime after 9PM on the 23rd of August we felt a bang and shake for about half a second in the apartment building that we live in . Fully expecting to see an amount of damage to the building by a car or trick that stuck it we didn’t get out of bed. The next day talk of an earthquake was about the town and news reporting said that Merritt had had a small earth quake, in the range of 2.6 on the energy released scale. Emergency vehicles were about on Friday after the shake and people said that they went to the Clay banks park over flow to a fire that  was not there and there were reports of Fire works at a local school. Lots of accounts of people hearing or feeling the brief shaking including retired fire chief Don Moyes who thought it may be like the experience of his child hood when he would hear and see explosions in the coal mines. Another person working at the Grand said that he spilled a bit of his drink he was preparing.

The United States Geological Survey does not list it on their records this may be that it was not on a plate boundary or an US threat. They do list an earthquake  on the 19th in Osoyoos, 2.5 in energy at 15.32 , UTC 7.00.

Talking to a young woman from Japan on Saturday at Starbucks she said 2.6 is a weekly occurrence for her and her companion said he doesn’t know if it’s a quake, sometimes ,or a passing truck.

The confusion is an enigma about fires and fireworks here is some advice from  a Canadian source on what to do in an event:

http://embc.gov.bc.ca/em/hazard_preparedness/earthquake_information.html

Today in History: August 27th 1928

The Kellogg-Briand pact is signed, it eventually leads to 61 countries signing on.