At approximately 10:23 AM on Friday, April 5, a rare 4.8 magnitude earthquake rattled the northeast with its epicenter located barely a mile from Tewksbury, New Jersey near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, scattering the groggy Friday morning traffic. The quake and its aftershocks were felt in surrounding states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, New York, Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, especially Philadelphia. Several historic buildings standing since the 1700s likely faced very minimal damage but nothing too serious as stated by NBC News Philadelphia. On the other hand, modern infrastructure is built following the seismic code to ensure maximum stability and protection during earthquakes.
Christine Goulet, the director of the Earthquake Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey explains that Earth’s crust east of the Rocky Mountains appears to propagate seismic waves further than earthquakes taking place in the west, pointing out the cause for why the shock was felt across hundreds of miles.
Locally, many Montgomery County residents reported slight tremors, namely students and staff of Methacton School District’s jointly-constructed Skyview Upper Elementary (fifth and sixth grade) and Arcola Middle School (seventh and eighth grade). A sixth-grade student recalled that the shocks were felt for a few minutes during one of the presentations at their Career Day event. Individuals in the building abided by the “stop-cover-hold on” procedure where they took shelter under desks and covered their heads until the shaking subsided.
Meanwhile, freshman Margot Ferrara of Methacton High School remarked, “I couldn’t feel it through the stampede of freshmen headed to the job fair. When our grade mobs, it is scary!”, referring to the career exploration activities held at the high school. Regardless, the high school did not report any tremors that day.
Seismologists predict that a stronger earthquake will happen in the area in the upcoming days although chances are very low.
