EARTHQUAAAKE! In DC!

[Lonestar]

3.6 shakes DC region

WASHINGTON - A 3.6 magnitude earthquake shook the WTOP listening area just after 5 a.m.
The U.S. Geological Survey says it happened at exactly 5:04:49 a.m.

"It was centered in the Germantown-Gaithersburg area," Randy Balwin with the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center tells WTOP.

"It was certainly widely felt throughout the area," Baldwin says.

"There's always a chance of getting aftershocks. As a general rule, the aftershocks are of a less magnitude."

So far there are no reports of any damage.

Preliminary reports from USGS said it was a 3.7.

Balwin say the area's last earthquake was 2.0 in 2008. The region also had a 2.7 quake in 1993.

The calls started rolling in right after 5:04 a.m.

WTOP listeners have called in from Falls Church, Bethesda, Silver Spring, Aspen Hill, Poolesville, Boonsboro, West Springfield, Beltsville and Gaithersburg.

WTOP also received calls from as far away as West Virginia.

Some say it felt like underground blasting or a truck hitting a building.

(Copyright 2010 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

So me and my coworker are sitting at work and feel a brief shaking. It was light enough that that we thought someone had entered the NOC and was just stomping on the deck plates. We looked around, no one was here...little did we know it was an earthquake! In DC!

[SirNitram]

Didn't feel it here in Charleston. But damn, a quake under DC? That's... New.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Yep... one of those oldie-but-goodie faults way down deep along the east coast.

[Srelex]

At first I thought of some crappy Syfy TV-movie. Good thing it's nothing serious.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Man.. all the folks at NIST Gaitherburg are going to be cursing... all the work to fix just about anything back might take a day.

[Ghost Rider]

Maybe that's what disturbed cat #3. Other then that, felt nothing.

[Kanastrous]

I remember the day that I put together long-dormancy-period faults with huge wide bedrock formations to transmit the shocks with no such thing as earthquake-standard building codes and decided to move from DC to somewhere safer. Like Los Angeles.

Usually my Mom calls me to ask how the earthquake felt...

[LadyTevar]

Just cause the East Coast's Bedrock is older, don't mean it's dead.

Pity it couldn't shake some sense into Congress.

[Kanastrous]

That would probably take something along the lines of a 7.0.

And then they wouldn't have any place left to meet in.

[Tanasinn]

And then they wouldn't have any place left to meet in.

"And nothing of value was lost."

Good to hear this wasn't bad enough to hurt anyone, though.

[MKSheppard]

So that's why the dogs were so annoying last night.

[Temujin]

My potential future boss was late for our interview because of this. I guess it woke him up early, and threw off his whole schedule.