A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
A rare magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey on Friday, shaking buildings in Manhattan and across the New York region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was felt across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
It struck about 40 miles southwest of Manhattan at 10:23 a.m. Eastern time. The epicenter was less than 1 mile northwest of the unincorporated community of Oldwick in New Jersey.
Weak shaking was felt from Washington to Maine, including in Boston, Philadelphia, and Albany, N.Y.
People in New York City reported feeling buildings sway. Then, at 11:02 a.m., they received a beeping emergency alert on their phones urging them to stay indoors and call 911 if injured.
At busy intersections, people’s cellphones shrieked with the same alerts, as a series warned of aftershocks.
In midtown Manhattan, convenience store proprietor Arun Kumar, 50, said he thought the rattling was a heavy truck passing nearby.
“But it felt a little weird, a little different, you know?” he said.
Maria Marta, 75, who was visiting from Buenos Aires, said she barely felt a tremor. But she lived in the city in the 1980s and experienced an earthquake then.
“It’s New York, you know?” she said Friday. “Anything can happen.”
An analysis from the USGS found the quake was small enough that there “is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.”
According to the agency, strong shaking was felt at the epicenter, as defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. That’s enough to be felt by everyone, but cause only slight damage.
A large part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast felt weak shaking, according to people who filed reports to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” tracking service. Weak shaking is defined as being felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of a building, and may rock standing motor vehicles slightly.
Earthquakes are not unknown in the eastern United States. Over the last half-century, more than 400 quakes of magnitude 3.5 or greater have been recorded across eastern North America, according to the USGS.
Shaking from a single quake in the eastern U.S. can be felt much farther away than an equivalently powerful magnitude quake in California.
“The eastern U.S. has older rocks that are harder and often denser, and faults on those older rocks have had more time to heal, allowing seismic waves to cross them more efficiently when an earthquake occurs,” according to the USGS.
The largest earthquake that occurred closest to the area of Friday’s temblor was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Va., in 2011.
The 2011 earthquake — which produced more than 32 times more energy than Friday’s — resulted in severe shaking at the epicenter. As defined by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, severe shaking can cause considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures and break some chimneys.
The 2011 quake caused $200 million to $300 million in damage, including to historic structures such as the Washington Monument, the Washington National Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.
More recently, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in 2020 near Sparta, N.C., rattling northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia.
Other historic damaging quakes in the eastern U.S. include one off Cape Ann, Mass., in 1755, estimated to be a magnitude 5.9, which resulted in damage to the Boston waterfront; an estimated magnitude 4.5 quake near Petersburg, Va., in 1774, which shoved homes from their foundations and was felt by Thomas Jefferson; and an estimated magnitude 7 quake near Charleston, S.C., in 1886 that killed 60 people, according to the USGS.
While California is the focus of national attention for its outsized seismic risk, a report issued by the USGS last year noted that the eastern U.S. faces risk too.
Calculating an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the projected cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis, the USGS found that the Memphis area faces an annual earthquake loss of $131 million a year, and the New York City region $49 million a year.
In any given year, New York City has a low probability of a damaging earthquake, but any quake could still cause significant damage because of the city’s density and age of its buildings, according to the city’s emergency management agency. A large number of older brick buildings have not been retrofitted, putting them especially at risk.
Sally Taylor, a 77-year-old artist, said she felt the vibrations Friday morning in her apartment in Manhattan’s west 30s. When she wasn’t sure what the shaking was, relatives visiting her from the Bay Area said: “Nope, that was an earthquake.
”And that was nothing!” they added.
Jarvie reported from Atlanta, King from New York and Lin from Cleveland.
