An earthquake in New Jersey sent shockwaves up the densely populated Northeast corridor Friday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said, with residents across the Eastern Seaboard reporting they felt rumbling.
The agency reported a quake at 10:23 a.m. with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8 centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, about 45 miles west of New York City and 50 miles north of Philadelphia.
The earthquake was felt throughout New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and as far as the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border over 200 miles away. More than 42 million in the region likely felt the ground shake, according to U.S.G.S. figures.
Over a dozen aftershocks were reported in the ensuing hours in the region, including a 4.0-magnitude quake early Friday evening near Gladstone, N.J., the Associated Press reported.
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The Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops at Newark and JFK airports, NBC New York reports. In midtown Manhattan, the usual cacophony of traffic grew louder as motorists blared their horns on momentarily shuddering streets. Some Brooklyn residents heard a booming sound and their building shaking.
Attorney Finn Dusenbery was in a law office in midtown Manhattan when he felt the building shake.
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“The building shook and I thought that the ceiling above me was going to collapse,” Dusenbery told The Associated Press. “I did think that maybe the building was going to fall down for a second, and I wanted to get out of the building when I felt that.”
At a coffee shop in lower Manhattan, customers buzzed over the unexpected earthquake, which rattled dishware and shook the concrete counter. “I noticed the door trembling on its frame,” said India Hays, a barista. “I thought surely there couldn’t be an earthquake here.”
"TODAY" shows' Al Roker was in his dressing room when he suddenly felt shaking and immediately took out his phone and took to Instagram Live to share what was going on.
"So there you have it. The great earthquake of 2024 just before the total eclipse of 2024," he quipped. "Wild."
A UN Security Council meeting to discuss humanitarian aid in Gaza was interrupted by the earthquake, video shows.
The earthquake also led to the brief evacuation of Philadelphia’s City Hall, NBC Philadelphia reports. The Port Authority Transit Corporation, a rail line that runs between Philadelphia and Camden County, New Jersey, suspended their service.
New Jersey Transit posted on X that its train system was subject to delays caused by bridge inspections.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X that her team was assessing impacts and any possible damage.
There are fault lines in New York City, but experts say earthquakes in the area are very rare and that residents have nothing to fear, according to NBC New York.
The shaking stirred memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada. Registering magnitude 5.8, it was the strongest quake to hit the East Coast since World War II. The epicenter was in Virginia.
That earthquake left cracks in the Washington Monument, spurred the evacuation of the White House and Capitol and rattled New Yorkers three weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
