Tuesday, August 23, 2011

5.9 Earthquake Shakes Parts Of Mid-Atlantic

A 5.9 Earthquake has struck outside of Washington DC today. It's epicenter was 4 miles south southeast of Louisa, Virginia. I was sitting in my apartment building in Adelphi, MD and felt the building shaking. At first I thought maybe someone on the floor below me dropped something really heavy but I realized that the building was shaking for more than a few seconds. After the earthquake was done I took to the social media outlet Twitter to confirm some of my suspicious. Sure enough, Twitter became flooded with news of the earthquake.

My friends in NYC and Virginia were tweeting about feeling the earthquake too. Below is a map from CNN of the epicenter:

Here is a map of people reporting what they felt:

Update here

The quake was felt from North Carolina to Rhode Island. If you felt the earthquake and would like to report what you felt, follow the link here. This is the 25th earthquake Virginia has received since it officially became a state. This is also the strongest in VA since 1897 according the the USGS.

Update 3:38 PM EST
The magnitude of the earthquake has been dropped to 5.8.


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