The rare earthquake struck the city of 8.3 million people, but no casualties were immediately reported.
A magnitude 4.8 earthquake shook the northeastern United States Friday morning, causing tremors along the Atlantic coast between Boston and Philadelphia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The quake's epicenter was in Lebanon, New Jersey, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of New York City, and shook buildings across densely populated Manhattan and the five boroughs. According to the USGS, as many as 45 million people may have felt the impact.
Still, no casualties or major structural damage were reported immediately after the quake struck at 10:23 a.m. local time (14:23 GMT), according to the New York City Fire Department.
The New York City Mayor's Office said in a post on social media platform X that it was still “assessing the impact.” Authorities were scheduled to hold a press conference at 12pm local time (16:00 GMT) to provide an update.
Meanwhile, the New York City Emergency Management Agency urged anyone who is “at risk” to call the emergency 911 number and report other non-emergency impacts to the city's service hotline.
A spokesperson for New York City Public Schools said the team was evaluating school facilities out of “an abundance of caution.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that the Holland Tunnel, the main commuter route between New Jersey and Manhattan, will be temporarily closed for inspection.
Some flights bound for New York were also diverted to other airports, according to tracking website FlightAware.
City residents reported that it felt like the building was shaking for several minutes.
“I noticed the door frame was shaking,” India Hayes, a lower Manhattan barista, told The Associated Press. “I thought there would never be an earthquake here.”
Bronx resident Charita Wolcott, 38, said the quake “felt like a violent rumbling that lasted about 30 seconds.”
“The vibrations were like being in a drum circle,” she told Reuters.
At the United Nations in midtown Manhattan, Save the Children CEO Inger Ashing abruptly stopped speaking to the Security Council about the war in Gaza.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN special envoy, quipped: “The ground is shaking.”
People in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Connecticut and other parts of the Northeast also reported feeling the quake, which lasted for several seconds more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) away near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. .
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a post on X that she has been in touch with the White House and that President Joe Biden has also been briefed.
“While earthquakes are rare along the Atlantic coast, they are not unprecedented,” the USGS said. Although there are no active plate boundaries along the coast, “stresses do exist,” he said in a post to X.
The earthquake evoked memories of the Aug. 23, 2011 earthquake that shook tens of millions of people along the Atlantic coast from Georgia to Canada.
The earthquake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale, making it the strongest to hit the East Coast since World War II.
The epicenter of that earthquake was in Virginia. It left cracks in the Washington Monument, prompted the evacuation of the White House and Capitol Hill, and shocked New Yorkers.