Earthquake: Ground Shakes In North America, Widely Felt Tremors Across Eastern Seaboard (LIVE)
A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck Virginia Tuesday afternoon, rattling communities across the Eastern seaboard in North America, including Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City and even into New Brunswick.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was 800 metres deep and centred about 64 kilometres northwest of Richmond, the state capital of Virginia. Shaking was felt at the White House and all over the East Coast. The quake forced the temporary evacuation of the Pentagon and the White House, among other buildings in Washington, D.C.
Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in the same county as the epicentre were automatically taken off line by safety systems around the time of the earthquake, said Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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Based in Mineral, Va., according to the USGS, the quake was likely caused by a release of stress from the earth’s crust, said University of Toronto geologist Andrew Miall.
The tremors were probably a result of a “crustal stretching” that began about 200 million years ago, when North America first began to separate from Europe and Africa, Miall told The Huffington Post Canada.
“Earthquakes on the east coast or the eastern margin of North America including well inland in places like Toronto are related to very, very old fractures in the earth’s crust that are releasing stress that in many cases have been stored there for many years,” he said. “This crustal stretching is related to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean...and that’s still going on.”
When this release of stress occurs, it causes a minor to moderate earthquake — which can be felt over hundreds of kilometres, he said.
“We feel them in Toronto even though the epicentre is often in Ohio, Indiana or somewhere down in the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Valley,” he said.
Though a tremor of the magnitude recorded in Virgina can do damage in the immediate vicinity, Miall said that this type of quake “doesn’t foretell anything worse in the future,” adding that “these are usually one-offs.”
Mineral is a town located about 150 kilometres southwest of Washington.
There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or damage. The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. suffered minor damage, a spokesman confirmed.
A crowdsourced map shows how widely and intensely the quake was felt in Virginia and the surrounding area.
In New York, the 26-story federal courthouse in lower Manhattan began swaying and hundreds of people were seen leaving the building. Court officers were not letting people back in.
The quake came a day after an earthquake in Colorado toppled groceries off shelves and caused minor damage to homes in the southern part of the state and in northern New Mexico. No injuries were reported as aftershocks continued Tuesday.
With files from Rachel Mendleson and staff at The Huffington Post Canada, and The Associated Press.
The Atlantic has posted new photos of damage done to the Washington National Cathedral in today's earthquake, including fallen statues and damaged spires. The photos can be found here.
| @ washingtonpost : Washington Monument may be cracked and could be closed indefinitely. http://t.co/tRq7ahD #dcquake #earthquake -via @postlocal |
According to USGS, preliminary 4.2-magnitude aftershock in Mineral, Virginia
| @ NBCNews : RT @newmediajim Aftershock in Mineral, VA just now. |
| @ jdickerson : Quake just hit again. Kids furious they've missed it twice This time they were jumping around house-- couldn't distinguish. |
HuffPost's Christina Wilke reports:
MINERAL, Va. -- Residents of this small town in Central Virginia's farming county began repairing the damage to their homes and businesses Tuesday after an earthquake struck their close-knit community. The quake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale, a force not seen in this part of the country in more than a century.
"I felt the whole house coming in from underneath me, and everything flew off the shelves," said Dot Payne, a lifelong resident of Mineral. "It felt like it lasted forever, but it was probably only 40 seconds."
| @ twitter : And, we hit about 5,500 Tweets per second (TPS). For context, this TPS is more than Osama Bin Laden's death & on par w/ the Japanese quake. |
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| @ twitter : Within a minute of today's #earthquake, there were more than 40,000 earthquake-related Tweets. |
According to the White House pool report, Josh Earnest provided an earthquake update, stating: "The president didn't feel the earthquake today."
On Facebook, Twitter and even Google's fledging Plus network, people asked Tuesday if it was really an earthquake they just felt or perhaps Godzilla paying a visit. For many, it was the first quake they ever experienced.
Their West Coast peers, more used to such rumblings, promptly started making fun of them.
"Really all this excitement over a 5.8 quake??? Come on East Coast, we have those for breakfast out here!!!!" wrote Dennis Miller, 50, a lifelong California resident whose house in Pleasanton sits on an earthquake fault line. He said he's had a number of people click "like" on his post on Facebook – all of them from the West Coast, though.
Jamie Henn of 350.org wrote to The Huffington Post regarding the Tar Sands Action protests in D.C. He said, "Clearly, we're shaking things up."
Chevy Chase Patch provides an image of the National Cathedral with a lost pinnacle here.
HuffPost's Jen Bendery and Sara Kenigsberg report that in D.C., "employees from an array of government agencies and chain restaurants stood together along the sidewalks for more than an hour as their buildings were being cleared for re-entry." More here.
CLEVELAND -- Shock waves from an earthquake on the East Coast made the press box sway slightly and sent some fans toward the exits during the first game of a doubleheader between the Indians and Seattle Mariners.
As the Mariners were batting in the fourth inning Tuesday, the press box high above home plate and the third-base line moved left and right and continued for nearly 30 seconds. Fans sitting in the upper deck at Progressive Field noticed the unusual movement, and weren't sure what was happening.
According to this Purple Strategies analysis of Radian6 data, there were 743,000 online posts mentioning "earthquake" as of 2:48 p.m. ET and 96.7% of the public conversation took place on Twitter.
The USGS has now recorded two aftershocks measuring 2.8 and 2.2 in magnitude.
HuffPost's Lynne Peeples reports:
Has today's earthquake distracted East Coasters from a greater pending threat?
The National Hurricane Center forecasts Hurricane Irene's winds will peak at about 125 mph over the next few days, as the storm makes its way through the Bahamas and up the eastern seaboard -- potentially as far north as New England.
The result could very well be a double or even triple-whammy of natural hazards for some regions. “The flooding may be intensified in areas that have received torrential rainfall recently this month, such as coastal areas of the Northeast,” reported AccuWeather.com.
During a press conference on the earthquake, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said that he is “more concerned” about the approaching hurricane, according to a tweet from The New York Times’ Michael Paulson.
“There is nothing between where Irene is now and the U.S. in keeping it from not intensifying further into a major hurricane,” Chris Hyde, a meteorologist with MDA EarthSat Weather in Gaithersburg, Md., told Bloomberg News. “The water temperatures are warm especially when you get to the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is going to explode this thing.”
A YouTube user has uploaded video of a dog reacting to the earthquake in Virginia.
WATCH:HuffPost's Tom Zeller reports:
Dr. Lynn Sykes, an earthquake expert at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that while Tuesday’s 5.8 temblor near Mineral, Va., was a new high for the so-called central Virginia seismic zone, it ought not be thought of as a harbinger of things to come.
“We should read this as just another earthquake,” Sykes said. He added, however, that it should serve as something of a “wake-up call.” No one is alive who can recall the 5.2 magnitude earthquake that hit New York City in 1884, Sykes said, but they do happen. And easterners, he said, are complacent in the sense that critical infrastructure -- including nuclear power plants -- east of the Mississippi are typically not designed to withstand high-magnitude earthquakes.
The Indian Point nuclear power plant just north of New York City is designed to withstand a 6.1 magnitude quake, for example.
“Back in the 1960s, when the first designs for these plants were put forth, the idea was that this area is not as active as others -- and that’s true,” Sykes said. “But they went ahead and designed reactors for quite a small earthquake.”
Patch reports that an already low turnout is likely to be even lower for primary voting in Northern Virginia:
"We're setting up voting in parking lots in some places," said Edgardo Cortes, registrar, for Fairfax County Office of Elections. Voting in parking lots is either by paper ballot or machines operating on battery power, he noted.
HuffPost's Jen Bendery gets reactions from D.C. following the earthquake:
WATCH:At Union Jack’s on St. Elmo Avenue in downtown Bethesda, bartenders were whipping up earthquake-themed shots and drinks.The $4 “Earthquake” cocktail – whiskey, orange juice and amaretto – was accompanied by the “Aftershock” shot, otherwise known as Goldschläger with a touch of grenadine.
Patch reports from Columbia, Maryland:
Howard County Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Laura Morena-Hill said the quake started soft, with the floor and her office chair vibrating.“But it quickly picked up intensity and strength to the point the whole building was rocking and shaking back and forth,” she wrote in an e-mail. “It only lasted a few minutes, but those were the scariest few minutes of my life! We all ran out of the building and stood outside until we thought it was safe.”
The Washington City Paper offers a list of what has closed down as a result of the quake, available here.
| @ LukeRussert : Cap Police: "The Capitol Building has been inspected by structural engineers and is ready for re-entry." Go grab your Gn'R CDs @bdayspring |
Patch reports that according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, MD, 12 nuclear plants in the mid-Atlantic declared an "unusual event" and one declared an "alert." More here.
HuffPost's Tom Zeller reports:
The American Society for Civil Engineers’ most recent “report card” on national infrastructure lists a number of trouble spots in Virginia -- including 143 “high-hazard” dams, one of which sits on Lake Anna near the North Anna nuclear power plant.
“A high hazard dam is defined as a dam whose failure would cause a loss of life and significant property damage,” the group notes on its website.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. National Park Service says all memorials and monuments on the National Mall in Washington have been evacuated and closed after an earthquake struck near the nation's capital. No damage was reported.
The Park Service says the memorials and monuments, including the newly opened Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, were evacuated immediately after the quake.
A building at 125th street and 7th avenue in Harlem is cordoned off after it was found to have a crack after an earthquake hit the New York City area. New York City residents evacuated buildings after an early afternoon earthquake hit Virginia and could be felt as far north as Harlem in New York City on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011.
Photo courtesy of AOL's Damon Dahlen
Firefighters were called to inspect numerous unsafe building conditions after an early afternoon earthquake hits Virginia and could be felt as far north as Harlem in New York City on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011. The majority of buildings had nothing wrong with them and were deemed safe.
Photo courtesy of AOL's Damon Dahlen
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The Huffington Post Canada First Posted: 08/23/11 02:55 PM ET Updated: 10/24/11 06:12 AM ET