As many as 100 residents in the Lumby area have reported hearing a sudden, deafening noise just after 12 p.m. Friday.
And so far, nobody seems to know what caused it.
Rob Blake said the noise sounded like a loud explosion, in a post on the Around the Block Lumby Facebook page around 12:10 p.m. Nov. 27.
“It was like a volcano erupted,” Blake said.
“Did anyone just hear that big boom, Creighton Valley Rd,” his post reads. Since then, the post has racked up more than 125 comments, with people reporting they heard the sound from various locations in the area.
Some said they heard the loud ‘boom’ from the Harris Creek Road area, or felt a tremor on Valeview. Others reported hearing the sound from as far away as Lavington, Cherryville and Vernon.
Earthquakes Canada seismologist Camille Brillon said the agency hasn’t seen any signs of an earthquake in the Lumby area around the reported time. She said it’s possible an earthquake was too small to register at the nearest seismograph.
Melanie Wenzoski, Lumby’s manager of corporate services, also said she heard the boom while outside for a walk, but said there is nothing in the village’s operations schedule — such as blasting or construction — that could account for it.
“It sounded like an explosion,” Wenzoski said, adding the sound reminded her of large metal I-beams crashing together.
“But we have no construction like that going on here right now,” she said.
Several years ago residents felt the effects of a deep-ground sonic boom. Wenzoski recalls hearing the sound of that earthquake, too, which to her sounded like a train crash.
“This today didn’t quite sound like that,” she said. “The sound came from the south, just south of the village office, so it could have been anywhere in the industrial park.”
No power outages have been reported in the area, and no reports of smoke or other visible traces of an explosion have been reported either.
There are also no current projects in the area listed on the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s ProjectsBC webpage.
The Morning Star has reached out to the local RCMP and the Lumby Fire Department to see if emergency officials know what triggered the ‘boom.’
Residents who feel an earthquake can report it to Earthquakes Canada using the felt report form, which helps the agency track the extent of shaking and damage for earthquakes in Canada.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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