A 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck New York on Friday morning, the US Geological Survey said, shaking buildings and startling millions of people along the East Coast, including major nearby cities such as Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Residents were surprised as seismic activity is rarely recorded in the area.
The epicenter of the quake was in Tewksbury in central New Jersey, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of New York.
No major damage was reported, only cracks in road surfaces, but New York Gov. Cathy Hochul warned of the possibility of aftershocks at a news conference. Engineering teams inspect roads and bridges.
“This is one of the largest earthquakes on the East Coast in the last century,” she said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said there were no reports of injuries, but urged residents to take cover under furniture, a door or an interior wall if they felt aftershocks, Reuters reported.
Charita Walcott, a 38-year-old resident of the Bronx borough of New York, said the quake felt “like a loud rumble that lasted about 30 seconds.”
Residents in the region received an earthquake alert on their cellphones.
James Pittinger, mayor of Lebanon, New Jersey, near the epicenter of the quake, said there were no reports of injuries or significant damage, but people were disturbed.
President Joe Biden has spoken with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy about the earthquake and the administration will provide assistance if needed, the White House said in a statement.
At the United Nations building in midtown Manhattan, the CEO of Save the Children abruptly stopped speaking to the Security Council on the Israel-Gaza conflict as cameras began to shake.
“You make the earth shake,” quipped the Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour.
Flights were suspended at airports in the area after the earthquake, but resumed later. Delays are still expected for some of them.
Friday’s tremor was the largest felt in the city since the 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia in 2011 that prompted the evacuation of City Hall and other buildings and caused damage in Washington.
The 1989 earthquake that interrupted baseball’s World Series and shook San Francisco measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, which would make it more than 1,000 times stronger than Friday’s quake.
Earthquakes in the eastern U.S. are felt over a much wider area because the bedrock is much older and harder, transferring seismic energy more easily, according to the USGS. The rocks in the western US are younger and contain more faults that absorb earthquake energy.
