Magnitude 2.2 Microquake Felt in New York and New Jersey

A microquake of magnitude 2.2 was felt early Friday in New York and New Jersey, the United States Geological Survey said.

The movement was recorded at 2:00 am and was felt in northwest Yonkers, along the Hudson River in New York and also New Jersey, according to local reports.

CNN network interviewed Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the National Geological Survey Information Center, who noted that they received about 200 alerts from people who felt the movement.

Most of these reporters were from people within a 25km radius of the quake’s epicenter, Baldwin said. “It’s quite common, you might have several earthquakes a month, a handful of earthquakes in random places,” he added.

The Yonkers fire bureau confirmed that it received emergency calls, but most were due to noise caused by the quake, with no serious damage or injuries. An alleged burnt transformer was also reported.

Earthquakes in the northeastern United States, CNN noted, are particularly “difficult to predict” and occur randomly, geologist Baldwin said.

“Fault lines are usually not identified, they are underground and they just happen,” he said.

In the last semester, the Geological Survey reported about 100 “small” earthquakes in the northeast of the US, on the border with Canada.