NU Online News Service, July 16, 12:40 p.m. EDT
The nation's capital was shaken by something other than a political tremor this morning when a 3.6 magnitude earthquake shook the region.
An earthquake shook the Potomac-Shenandoah region in Maryland early this morning, about 20 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. and 70 miles north-northwest of Annapolis.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), about 12,000 people were exposed to shaking at 5:04 a.m. EDT with intensity deemed "moderate" on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) Scale.
But the earthquake mostly produced "light" and "weak" shaking and will likely cause no damage, based on USGS' ShakeMap.
So far, more than 15,000 people in 538 different ZIP codes have reported feeling the quake, some as far away as Pennsylvania and West Virginia, according to USGS.
USGS said that earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the West, can be felt over an area of as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude quake on the west coast.
USGS notes on its website that no historical earthquake has ever been centered within the District of Columbia.
A spokesperson for catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions said that they will not be issuing a statement because there has been no damage reported.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.