With natural disasters like floods, wildfires, and heat waves consistently in the news, it’s easy to forget that Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest are at risk of another type of natural disaster: earthquakes.
A report published in 2025 by the provincial government outlines what the impacts of a Cascadia Megathrust magnitude 9 earthquake off of Vancouver Island would look like.
It says this “high-consequence” event, especially in southwestern B.C., would “pose severe risks to human safety, infrastructure and economic stability.”
The shaking could damage 18,000 buildings in the province, cause 10,000 injuries, and result in 3,400 fatalities.
“A single magnitude 9 (M9) earthquake has the potential for human and economic losses that exceed the combined losses from all disasters experienced in B.C. over the past 200 years,” reads the report.
While the chance of this happening in any given year is less than one per cent, there’s a 10 to 20 per cent likelihood it will happen in the next 50 years.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone runs 1,000 kilometres from northern Vancouver Island to northern California, where the Juan de Fuca Plate is slowly sliding under the North American Plate. As these two tectonic plates push against each other, they create built-up stress. When that stress becomes too much, an earthquake happens.
Government of Canada
Colloquially known as “the big one,” a magnitude 9 (M9) earthquake would be devastating for the economy.
B.C. predicts that it would cause $128 billion of economic losses, potentially cause the failure of Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry, reduce economic growth by half, and cause the loss of 43,700 jobs in the 10 years after.
“Direct economic loss from damage to buildings due to mainshock ground shaking is around $38 billion,” the report states.
Most at risk were buildings constructed before 1990, when building codes didn’t have earthquake provisions.
Not only would there be the damage from the earthquake, but an earthquake can cause a host of other hazards, including landslides, liquefaction, tsunamis, floods and urban fires. There might also be aftershocks, which can “exacerbate the impacts to already damaged buildings and impede (and potentially reset or restart) the response and recovery efforts.”
An earthquake and these events could all damage critical infrastructure and disrupt services like transportation, water, power and communication.
Is Vancouver prepared for “the big one”?
In 2024, Vancouver undertook a seismic risk assessment for buildings, where it identified the most at-risk building types and their location, using a magnitude 7.2 Georgia Strait planning scenario earthquake.
They found that the City has nearly 6,100 buildings that would be “completely and extensively damaged,” resulting in $17 billion in direct financial losses.
“Modelling showed that 10 per cent of our buildings were driving nearly 80 per cent of the City’s risk. Those high-risk buildings are older wood, brick, and concrete residential buildings and many older commercial towers and low-rise neighbourhood commercial buildings,” said the City of Vancouver in an email to Daily Hive.
City of Vancouver
The highest risk areas are almost 75 per cent renters, with 30 per cent low income, 10 per cent seniors, 40 per cent identify as visible minorities, and 10 per cent Indigenous.
“These groups may face additional challenges in preparing their households and upgrading their buildings, exposing them to potentially greater risk than other residents,” is stated in a staff report.
“Critically, these buildings also contain nearly all the city’s stock of existing purpose-built rental units and neighbourhood-serving small businesses. Very few of these at-risk buildings have been replaced or upgraded to withstand the level of earthquakes we now understand are possible in our region.”
City of Vancouver
Earthquake preparation in Vancouver
Vancouver says that preparing for an earthquake is “complex” and has multiple city departments working on it.
As the majority of the at-risk buildings are privately owned, the City has a by-law that requires seismic upgrades on many buildings during a major renovation. They can also incentivize redevelopment of older, high-risk buildings.
But the Vancouver notes that doing so is challenging, due to the risk of displacing residents and small businesses, and said they need support from the provincial and federal governments.
If an earthquake happens, they said they are continually training staff and volunteers to respond to it. In the first days afterwards, first responders and staff would be “focused on life safety and the most urgent needs across the city.”
“Families, neighbours, and community organizations will need to work together to support each other for several days, and preparing in advance will make that easier,” they said.
They recommend that people prepare for earthquakes by having emergency kits ready, getting to know their neighbours, and following trusted sources of information like the City of Vancouver and EmergencyInfoBC.
