Drop, cover and hold on: Whitehorse students take part in international earthquake drill

Students at Selkirk Elementary School in Whitehorse spent Thursday morning learning what to do in an earthquake as part of an international earthquake awareness day.

At 10:20 a.m., students practiced how to drop, cover and hold on. The session was part of the Great ShakeOut, a global initiative that takes place annually on Oct. 20.

In their classrooms and in the school gym, students practiced getting low to the ground and covering their heads. They also listened to a presentation by Leyla Weston, outreach geologist for the Yukon government.

Weston showed the students how to use a Raspberry Shake — a small geophone that monitors earthquakes. Students jumped and banged on the ground to see the geophone pick up the earth's vibrations, which were displayed on a projector.

"It was really loud," said Grade 7 student Haruka Ferby.

"It looked like an actual earthquake," added her sister, Olivia Ferby, referring to the vibrations recorded from the geophone.

Some areas of the Yukon are prone to earthquakes, Weston said, because of the territory's geology. The Denali Fault, a large fracture in the earth's crust, runs through Haines Junction and Burwash Landing. 

"It's along fault systems where we have energy building up as rocks on either side." Weston said. "Eventually, from time to time, there's a release of that energy in the form of a slip or a break along the fault, causing the earthquakes."

The southwestern part of the Yukon also runs along the plate boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate, making it prone to earthquakes when the plates collide.

Because of that, Weston said it was important for Yukoners to know what to do in the event of an earthquake and to be prepared for one. 

According the the Yukon government's website, a few hundred earthquakes occur in the territory each year. Most are of such a small magnitude that they are hardly felt. Moderate to large earthquakes, which are greater than a magnitude five, occur on average every few years.

Weston said climate change does not affect the frequency of earthquakes, but could indirectly increase how much impact they have.

"For example, if we're having thawing permafrost, we get slopes that become a little bit more unstable as the sediment becomes saturated, so that if we were to have an earthquake, we might be more prone to land instability due to permafrost thaw," she said. "In that situation, there are some indirect consequences." 

Julia Duchesne, communications analyst for the Yukon government's Protective Services division, said Yukoners should be aware of the risks posed by earthquakes.