COLUMBIA, SC (AP) – A relatively rare east coast earthquake, centered northeast of the South Carolina capital, shook a large number of residents to wake up early Monday, shaking the southern state with a preliminary magnitude of 3.3, authorities said.
There are no immediate reports of damage or injury.
The pre-dawn quest lasted only seconds, but hundreds of people turned to social media to describe that they were shaken from sleep when the quake struck shortly after 1:30 p.m. called it the latest in a series of shakes in recent months, but stronger than usual.
“There has definitely been a swarm here in the last few months. It’s not like a swarm like after a major seismic event, but we’ve had a few of them in recent months, “said geophysicist Amy Vaughn of the Associated Press’s 24-Hour Monitoring Service.
Vaughn said the magnitude 3.3 was an early estimate and could change, adding that the quake had an epicenter about 1.5 miles (3.1 kilometers) below the Earth’s surface near the Elgin community. This location is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of downtown Colombia, the capital.
Awake, they said they felt the ground shake for a few seconds, and some even described it as a heavy truck moving nearby. Vaughn said just an hour later that she had received reports from the earthquake monitoring center.
“I have not heard of any damage reports so far, but I have had over a thousand … reports,” she said. “If people were asleep, they would obviously be awake and things could be rattling from shelves or countertops, but not from the kind of tremor or intensity that could cause damage of any kind.
However, she called it “alarming for sure” and said weaker aftershocks were possible in the coming days or weeks. She noted that in April and March there were earthquakes with a preliminary magnitude of 2.0 or higher, and others in the region were a little more than four months ago – and 3.3 earthquakes last December.
She said the quake was quite shallow, close to the surface, which made it feel, adding that the area has been experiencing other shocks recently.
Two dozen mild earthquakes have shaken near Columbia since late last year, more than the 20 that typically average the state for an entire year, according to the South Carolina Emergency Management Department. Elgin is along a large fault system that stretches from Georgia through Carolina to Virginia.
Last year, the area near Jenkinsville – about 40 miles (60 kilometers) west of this group of quakes – registered six small earthquakes in more than a week, with three earthquakes registered in just one day.
According to emergency officials, about 70 percent of the earthquakes in South Carolina are in the Middleton Place-Somerville seismic zone, about 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) northwest of Charleston.
In 1886, this historic coastal city was home to the largest recorded earthquake in the history of the southeastern United States, according to seismic officials. The quake, believed to have a magnitude of at least 7, killed dozens and destroyed hundreds of buildings.
This event was preceded by a series of smaller quakes for several days, although it was not known that the previous quakes necessarily led to something more catastrophic until after the big earthquake.
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