Canadian earthquake rattles Philadelphia region
Danya Henninger had just finished lunch at her home computer Wednesday in the Bella Vista section of the city when she heard her husband shout from upstairs: "It's an earthquake!"
Danya Henninger had just finished lunch at her home computer Wednesday in the Bella Vista section of the city when she heard her husband shout from upstairs: "It's an earthquake!"
Her husband said to look at her drink, a black and tan, which was sitting half-full by her keyboard. "Sure enough, the dark brew was swaying noticeably, side to side," said Henninger, 36.
But it wasn't a Philly temblor. The magnitude-5.0 quake's epicenter was all the way up in Canada, in the Ontario-Quebec border region, at 1:41 p.m.
However, it could be felt in 19 states, said A.B. Wade, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS Web page - "Did You Feel It?" at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi - had recorded more than 53,000 responses by 7:30 p.m., from as far as Kentucky to the south and Iowa to the west.
The main USGS website says that earthquakes striking east of the Rockies are usually felt over a wider area, as much as 10 times the area of a similar-magnitude quake on the West Coast.
In northern New Jersey, the Bergen County administration building was evacuated for 20 minutes as a precaution, the Associated Press reported. County spokeswoman Sheri Hensley, who was on the fifth floor, said the building began "gently swaying" and employees fled down the stairs. She estimated the tremor lasted from 15 to 20 seconds.
The active Ramapo Fault extends diagonally across northwest New Jersey from southeastern New York to eastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey averages two to three small quakes each year, according to the AP.
Henninger, who co-owns a design business with her husband, said she saw a mention on Twitter of the earthquake from someone in Delaware, then one from Toronto, then Syracuse, N.Y. "I tweeted my two cents, and shortly thereafter the feed was flooded with earthquake-related info," she said. "I got quite a few incredulous replies from Philly folk who hadn't felt a thing."
