A shuddering 6.0 magnitude earthquake shook the East coast to its core about an hour ago. Reports of ground tremors and buildings swaying first filtered onto social networking website Twitter.com, followed immediately by Breaking news reports on the network and local news.
Tremors were felt in Washington DC, Chapel Hill, N.C., Virginia, and as far away as New York City and New Jersey. The White House, parts of the Pentagon and other government buildings were evacuated. Many New Yorkers, still wary 10 years after 9/11, poured out of office buildings and into the streets as tremors caused buildings to sway. Office workers were advised to go home and many business closed for the day.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was half a mile deep and centered in rural Virginia. Since the earthquake was not centered way out in the ocean, there are no Tsunami alerts for NY, NJ or DC.
Worried cell phone users around the country checking on family and friends jammed networks causing major outages at Verizon and Sprint. But T-Mobile reported few outages.
No shaking was felt here in Atlanta despite exaggerated reports of tremors occurring here in the deep South. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Did you feel the earthquake?
