News

 

 

BC at high risk for “mega earthquake” itn April

By Nikalas Kryzanowski, News Editor

N, need to run for higher ground just yet, but
seismologists are warning that a major earthquake
is more like to occur this month thanks to a cyclical
phenomenon called “episodic tremor and slip” (ETS)
activity. ETS periods happen every 14 months and are
marked by more small tremors and increased movement
as the Juan de Fuca plate grinds underneath the North
American plate along the Cascadia subduction zone.
Increased pressure is put on the plates under Vancouver
Island resulting in the increased risk of a major quake.

“Each time we have one of these events an
increment of stress gets added,” explained Garry
Rogers, an earthquake scientist with the Geological

British Columbia
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Survey of Canada. Rogers said the current forecast is
for a two-week ETS period to occur around mid-April
but noted that this phenomenon does not represent a
useful way to predict earthquakes. He also suggested
that the more probable source of major damage was
not an extremely rare and deep underground “monster”
subduction quake, but rather more common earthquakes
that are less powerful but felt more intensely because
they happen closer to the surface.

The last massive earthquake to hit the area struck on
Jan. 26, 1700, wiping out aboriginal villages in British
Columbia and sending a tsunami across the Pacific that
devastated Japan.

 

Five percent of babies in Prince George

born drug addicted

By Nikalas Kryzanowski, News Editor

births, but Hay suspects the real number may be

 

U, to five percent of new babies in Prince
George are coming into the world addicted to
drugs. This is according to Dr. Marie Hay, the
vice president of medical staff at Prince George
Regional Hospital. Doctors are alarmed at the
numbers they are seeing.

“They are sweating and crying. They can’t
breathe. They have fast heart rates, vomiting and
diarrhea. We have to actually give them morphine
to make their life bearable,” said Hay earlier this
week.” The hospital
tracked 43 drug-addicted babies that were born in
the region in 2007, representing five per cent of

 

higher because doctors can’t test newborns for
drugs without parental consent.

In comparison, less than one per cent of
newborns suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

“Eighteen years ago when I came here, I really
understood there was an epidemic of fetal alcohol,
and it’s taken about 18 years to awaken the sleeping
giant of bureaucracy to deal with this issue,” said
Hay. The provincial government recently allocated
$10 million to deal with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome,
but Hays said there are few programs available to
help pregnant and new mothers get off drugs.

 

CAMPUS HAPPENINGS

By Shannon McKay, Staff Photographer

 

 

 

 

Billy and Emma work on their serving skills at the ping pong intramurals, held every Wednesday.