HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, New Jersey — A small earthquake in New Jersey shook parts of the Tri-State Area on Saturday night.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the tremor with a magnitude of 3.0 hit in the New Jersey suburb of Hasbrouck Heights, less than 8 miles (13 kilometers) west of Central Park, at a depth of about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers).
Mayor Ron Kistner of Hasbrouck Heights and Bergen County authorities both said there were no reports of damages or injuries.
One resident of New York’s Brooklyn borough described it as a very brief tremor, just a slight swaying for a moment.
Nevertheless, social media quickly lit up with people who felt it. The official account of the Empire State Building posted on X to say: “I AM FINE.”
New York City Emergency Management said there were no immediate reports of significant impacts.
USGS’s tectonic summary said the quake was “a result of faulting at shallow depths in the crust,” explaining that “‘intraplate’ earthquakes can and do occur” further from fault lines.
“While this earthquake is relatively small globally, earthquakes of this magnitude are commonly widely felt in the eastern United States because of efficient seismic wave propagation in the region,” USGS added. Since 1950, 43 additional earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger occurred within approximately 155 miles of Saturday’s quake.
USGS does not consider earthquakes at 3.0 and below to be very dangerous or damaging.
“We would not expect there to be a lot of damage from a 3.0,” USGS Analyst Xan Davidson told ABC News over the phone. “It would just be shaking… because the 3.0 is not really considered a significant earthquake.”
“Earthquakes do happen here, but it’s not something that happens frequently,” Davidson said, referencing a 4.8 magnitude quake that hit southwest of Saturday’s epicenter about a year and a half ago.
Davidson said the vast area of people who reported feeling the quake, reaching as far as Connecticut, is not unexpected.
“You’re sitting quiet at home… You could see the light fixture swing or something like that,” she explained.
Despite the shock of an unexpected quake, Davidson said there is no reason for alarm.
“I wouldn’t be concerned with a three,” he said. “It depends on what you want to be concerned about, but I do not see this being something to be concerned about.”
In April 2024, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake centered in Northern New Jersey rattled the area with reports of at least 10 aftershocks.
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ABC News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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