A 4.8 magnitude earthquake shakes New York

New York City experiences numerous small earthquakes each year, according to experts. Normally, people don't feel them. But the one that shook the Big Apple this Friday made the ground and buildings shake for a few seconds in several boroughs of the city, especially in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including the UN headquarters, where a Security Council on the Gaza war. The earthquake, with its epicenter in Lebanon, in the neighboring state of New Jersey, had a magnitude of 4.8, almost three times that of the last one recorded, last January, of 1.7 and with its epicenter in Queens (New York). .

The tremor shook buildings throughout the New York region shortly after 10:20 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The federal agency confirmed that the epicenter was located in Lebanon, about 80 kilometers west of Manhattan, at a depth of 4.7 kilometers, although its impact has been felt in several cities on the East Coast, from Philadelphia to Boston. The epicenter was located just seven kilometers northeast of the Whitehouse station in Readington, New Jersey, hence the State Emergency Operations Center of the neighboring state of New York was immediately activated to coordinate response and recovery operations, announced New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

Several airports on the East Coast suspended air traffic immediately and trains traveling along the East Coast have slowed down while possible effects on the route are evaluated. The New York Police Department said it had no immediate reports of damage in the city, nor to the public transportation system, but sirens could be heard throughout the city, in addition to the incessant rotoring of helicopters. According to official information from the USGS, “there is a low probability of casualties or damage.” Almost half an hour later, alerts sounded on smartphones, advising residents, unaccustomed to this type of emergency, to stay home. It was already too late for the thousands of residents of Manhattan and Brooklyn who had taken to the streets to find out what was happening. Those from Lebanon, where the epicenter was located, took to the streets en masse.

“The shaking felt throughout the community in the last 15 minutes appears to be an earthquake,” South Brunswick police stated in an alert. “We have no reports of damage or injuries.” However, through an emergency alert sent to cell phones half an hour later, citizens were asked to remain inside the buildings and to call 911 in case of personal injury. The alert was accompanied by the USGS instruction manual to minimize personal risks in a similar situation: do not go outside, stay away from windows, fireplaces and the kitchen. Stop driving and go to an open area, away from buildings and power lines, if you are outside when the earthquake occurs.

In a social media post, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams urged New Yorkers to be prepared for an aftershock, with the following advice: “In the event of an aftershock, get on the ground, cover your head and neck, and “Take additional cover under solid furniture, along an interior wall, or in a door.” The USGS aftershock forecast indicates that there is a 3% chance of a large aftershock, magnitude greater than 5, in the next week and it is more likely that there could be smaller ones in the coming days (46% of probability of an aftershock of magnitude 3 or greater). In fact, an hour later, at 11:20, an aftershock of magnitude 2 – almost imperceptible – was felt near Bedminster, in New Jersey, according to USGS.

New York City added seismic safety regulations to its building code in 1995, but most of the city's nearly one million buildings were built before then. Especially vulnerable are the more than 100,000 multifamily buildings made of unreinforced brick, the photogenic brownstonesmostly built before the 1930s, which are at greater risk of collapsing during a strong earthquake.

Broadcast live by UN cameras, the tremor caused a brief interruption of the UN Security Council, meeting to analyze the humanitarian situation in the Strip. “You are making the ground shake,” the Palestinian ambassador said with a laugh to the director of Save The Children who was intervening at that moment to denounce the humanitarian catastrophe. The official account of the emblematic Empire State Building, one of the city's viewpoints, published on X (formerly Twitter) a brief but revealing message: “I'm fine.”

New York City may not be known for its seismic activity, but it is not an isolated phenomenon. One of magnitude 2.2 hit parts of New York and New Jersey in May of last year, and another of magnitude 3.6 hit the town of Adams Center, New York, the previous month. In 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Virginia caused the evacuation of City Hall and Midtown office buildings in Manhattan. The magnitude of this Friday's earthquake is not considered serious, but the impact depends not only on the epicenter, but also on its depth. The one recorded this Friday and the one on January 2 with the epicenter in Queens occurred at the same depth: about five kilometers. According to a study conducted in 2008, a magnitude 5 earthquake occurs in the area approximately once a century, and a magnitude 7 earthquake occurs every 3,400 years.

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