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People from New England to Virginia felt shakes from 4.8 earthquake this morning

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Millions of people on the East Coast got shaken up this morning. A magnitude 4.8 earthquake made the region tremble. The epicenter was in new Jersey, about 40 miles west of New York City. People reported feeling the shaking from New England all the way down to Virginia. NPR's Jasmine Garsd has more.

JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: It happened around 10:30 this morning. Buildings across New York City started trembling. Alex Rodas-Neira lives in Brooklyn. She's originally from a region in Ecuador with a lot of tremors. She says at first, she didn't think this could be an earthquake, not in New York.

ALEX RODAS-NEIRA: I was sleeping, and it - something startled me. I felt something shaking. I thought it was the subway that's close by, but it continued to shake.

GARSD: Rojas-Neda says she went out to the street with other startled neighbors. Earthquakes are rare in this region. There have been three magnitude 5.0 earthquakes in the New Jersey area in the last several hundred years. The last one happened in 1884. The U.S. Geological Survey says today's tremor may have been a very old, inactive fault that was reactivated. And because of the rock properties on the East Coast, earthquakes are felt much further from the epicenter than in the West Coast. Sam Baez in Newark says he was in an online meeting with several people from cities across the East Coast when it hit.

SAM BAEZ: We're all hearing this rumbling shake, and it wouldn't stop. And, you know, it took a minute for us to realize collectively, like, did you feel something? Oh, no. I'm in Jersey. I felt something, too.

GARSD: Ten families have been displaced due to the damage in three row homes in Newark. The Fire Department of New York has said it is evaluating structural stability of buildings that reported shaking. But there are no major incidents at this time. The subways are running normally. The U.S. Geological Survey says there have been at least two aftershocks and there could be more. There is only a 3% chance of a magnitude 5 or greater aftershock in the next week. Shortly after the quake, New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke at a press conference.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ERIC ADAMS: And if you feel an aftershock, drop to the floor. Cover your head and neck. And take cover under a solid piece of furniture next to an interior wall or in a doorway.

GARSD: It's a refrain many in earthquake-prone regions like California are familiar with. In case of earthquakes, duck, cover, hold. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Jasmine Garsd
Jasmine Garsd is an Argentine-American journalist living in New York. She is currently NPR's Criminal Justice correspondent and the host of The Last Cup. She started her career as the co-host of Alt.Latino, an NPR show about Latin music. Throughout her reporting career she's focused extensively on women's issues and immigrant communities in America. She's currently writing a book of stories about women she's met throughout her travels.