A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit New York City on Friday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said seismic activities with buildings shaking up and down the East Coast were noticed by residents of many areas where rarely any such sort of activities are felt.
The 4.8-magnitude tremor shook the city at 10:23 am, with rumbling felt as far along the east coast as far along the east coast as Boston and Baltimore.
According to U.S. Geological Survey, At 5:59 p.m. there was a small but noticeable aftershock, which had a magnitude of 4.0. The earthquake’s epicenter was in Tewksbery in central New Jersey, about 40 miles (i.e. 64 kilometers) west of New York City. It occurred just after 10:20 a.m. ET(1420 GMT) at a depth of 4.7 kilometers (2.9 miles), the USGS said.
A beeping mobile text alert went out to the NY people nearly after 40 minutes after the earthquake struck.
See what New York City Mayor Eric Adams has to say about the whole situation
Inspecting engineering teams were inspecting roads and bridges but no major damages was reported. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that no injuries had been reported but urged the city residents to take cover under furniture, in a doorway or next to an interior wall if they felt aftershocks.
Adams also said that everyone in the city had felt the earthquake, before going on to say he hadn’t noticed anything. “All of us felt, in some way or another, the earthquake hit our city at around 10:23am,” he told reporters.
When asked where he was when the earthquake struck, Mr Adams said “I was at a youth gun summit and I didn’t feel it, my security detail brought it to my attention.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at a news conference,” This is one of the largest earthquakes on the East Coast in the last century”.
People from Baltimore to Boston reported feeling rumbling and shaking, with some running outside to try to detect the source.
James Pittinger, mayor of Lebanon, New Jersey, near the quake’s epicenter, said there were no reports of injuries or significant damage but that people were unnerved. “It was a crazy experience. I was sitting in my home office when things started to fall off the walls and shelves”, says the mayor.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about the earthquake, and the administration will provide assistance if needed, the White House said in a statement.
Miranda Levy, a writer in Queens, said that the quake lasted about 30 seconds.
“I was upstairs in the attic bedroom when the noise happened again,” she added. “But this was more than just a faint rattle. It started getting louder and louder, and the walls and floor started to shake. At first I thought I was imagining it, but it soon became clear I wasn’t.”
Friday’s earthquake was the largest felt in the city since the 2011 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia that prompted evacuations of City Hall and other buildings and caused damage in Washington.
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