MINERAL, Va. (AP) — One of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded on the East Coast shook buildings and rattled nerves from South Carolina to New England on Tuesday and forced the evacuations of parts of the Capitol, White House and Pentagon.
There were no immediate reports of deaths, but fire officials in Washington said there were at least some injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake registered at magnitude 5.8 and was centered about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va.
(AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station, in the same county as the epicenter, were automatically taken off line by safety systems, said Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The earthquake came less than three weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and in both Washington and New York it immediately triggered fears of something more sinister than a natural disaster.
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Largest Colorado quake since 1973 shakes homes
TRINIDAD, Colo. (AP) – The largest earthquake to strike Colorado in almost 40 years has shaken hundreds of people near the New Mexico border.
The magnitude 5.3 earthquake was recorded at about 11:46 p.m. MDT Monday about nine miles southwest of Trinidad, Colo., and about 180 miles south of Denver, according to the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. The quake followed two smaller ones that hit the area earlier in the day.
The quake is the largest in Colorado since a magnitude 5.7 was recorded in 1973, U.S. Geological Service geophysicist Amy Vaughn said. That one was centered in the northwestern part of the state — about 50 miles north of Grand Junction, she said.
A few homes have been damaged and deputies were investigating reports of rockslides along a highway, a Las Animas County Sheriff's Office dispatcher said.
"I thought maybe a car had hit my house," 70-year-old Trinidad resident Nadine Baca said. "Then I called to my son and he said it was the third (quake) today."
Another USGS geophysicist, Shengzao Chen, said the information center had received calls from more than 70 people in Trinidad and several dozen people in New Mexico who felt the shaking. More than 30 people in Colorado Springs, about 130 miles north of Trinidad, also reported feeling the quake, he said.
A magnitude 4.6 quake was felt in the same area at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, and a magnitude 2.9 quake was recorded just before 8 a.m. Two aftershocks — one recorded at 3.5 and another at 3.8 — followed early Tuesday, more than an hour after the 5.3 quake.
The last time the area received such a series of earthquakes was in August and September 2001, when about a dozen smaller-sized temblors were recorded, Chen said.
"The area seems to be active again," he said.
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