Virginia 5.9m earthquake

[Joe]

Hi all,

The biggest earthquake to strike the eastern USA occured about 40 minutes ago, at 1:53 local time. (17:53 UTC)

The quake was felt as far away as Ontario. Cell phone service has been disrupted in New York City, parts of which has been evacuated.

The White House, The Pentagon, and other buildings in the Washington DC area have also been evacuated. Even the local county buildings in Scranton have been shut down.

I did not feel the quake...work was done at 1:30 and was still on the way home. My brother John, still at work; and Mom at home, felt the trembling.

Some of the USGS quake info...
earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0005ild.html#maps

[martindn]

Hope everyone is OK Joe. That's scary. I don't think you expect them in that part of the world.

God Bless,

Martin D

[Joe]

Aug 23, 2011 19:12:33 GMT martindn said:

Hope everyone is OK Joe. That's scary. I don't think you expect them in that part of the world.

God Bless,

Martin D

I'm surprised to hear initial reports of bridge damage in the Scranton and Wilkes-Barre area, where the quake was measured at 3. Numerous occurances of water-main breaks also. The local news is all abuzz pahomepage.com/video-livestream

There is reports of some damage to the US Capitol.

[martindn]

My Twitter feed has now picked it up.

EarthquakeShake Earthquake Shake5.9 - VIRGINIA: Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:51:03 UTCLat/Lon: 37.9746/-77.9689Depth: 1 on.doi.gov/rfyCq5



Glad there are no casualties.

Martin D

[martindn]

I gather there were several aftershocks yesterday, including quite a big one at 5.9.

Martin D

[stevemacdonald]

Aug 25, 2011 6:40:19 GMT martindn said:

I gather there were several aftershocks yesterday, including quite a big one at 5.9.

Martin D

The initial Virginia earthquake measured only 5.8 on the Richter scale. The aftershocks thus far have ranged between 4.5 and 2.2.