A 4.8 Magnitude earthquake hit New York, the city that never sleeps on Friday and the vibration rattled across many buildings.
No one was hurt, though, and New York’s iconic skyline remained intact.
“I AM FINE,” reported the Empire State Building on its X account.
In Brooklyn, buildings shook, rattling cupboard doors and fixtures, an AFP correspondent reported.
At the United Nations headquarters in New York, a Security Council meeting on the situation in Gaza was temporarily paused after the tremor.
Then the country’s emergency alert system sent messages to residents advising them to remain indoors.
“Residents are advised to remain indoors and to call 911 if injured,” the emergency alert said.
Flight operations were halted at several airports in the region including New York’s La Guardia, Philadelphia and Newark in New Jersey.
Social media users reported feeling the earthquake from Philadelphia up to New York and eastward along Long Island.
“Earthquakes are uncommon but not unheard of along the Atlantic Coast, a zone one study called a “passive-aggressive margin” because there’s no active plate boundary between the Atlantic and North American plates,” the USGS wrote on X.
According to USGS, a fairly damaging earthquake hits a urban city twice on a century and smaller earthquakes are felt roughly every two to three years.
