Notable earthquakes strike north of New Zealand; Emergency Info BC issues advisory to stand by for any information on impact for British Columbia

A number earthquakes, many strong a few significant
have rattled the Islands north of New Zealand for 
much of the last twelve hours.
(Map from USGS)

Update: Emergency Info BC has advised that the South Pacific event will not make for any Tsunami Danger for British Columbia.

***************************** Original Story *************************

The  fault lines off the northern coast of New Zealand have been extremely active with three significant earthquakes rubbing along, one of them an 8.1 magnitude quake listed as Notable, which appears to be how the United States Geological Service describes large scale events.

As the aftershocks continue and seismic observers look to chart the incident, a number of Pacific nations have been put on  Tsunami advisories for a range of potential wave options, with New Zealand to the south and others in other directions providing updates for their residents as to the degree of concern over the city.

So far there have been few reports of damage in New Zealand, which while the closest point to the Islands, still significantly far enough away to have avoided any issues during the earth movements. They appear more concerned about potential tsunami impact on their coastal communities.

Even British Columbia received an advisory with Emergency Info BC providing for two notices just before the noon hour, with the promise of more information to come.

At 1:15 PM the provincial service added one more update to the list, mostly noting that any impact on British Columba was still being evaluated.

You can keep up with their updates from their Twitter feed  and website

Should the situation change for British Columbia we'll update our notes according.

For more notes on past seismic events see our archive page here.