MINERAL, Virginia (AP) — A 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia forced evacuations of all the memorials and monuments on the National Mall in Washington and rattled nerves along the East Coast to Martha’s Vineyard, the Massachusetts island where President Barack Obama is vacationing.
A District of Columbia fire department spokesman said there were numerous injuries, but no reports of serious injuries or deaths.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was half a mile (0.8 kilometer) deep and centered near Louisa, Virginia, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Richmond.
Shaking was felt at the White House and all over the East Coast, as far south as Charleston, South Carolina. Parts of the Pentagon, White House and Capitol were evacuated.
The National Cathedral in Washington appeared to be damaged. A spokesman for the cathedral said at least three of the four pinnacles on the central tower fell off and the central tower appeared to be leaning.
Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in the same county as the epicenter were automatically taken off line by safety systems around the time of the earthquake, said Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Dominion-operated power plant is being run off of four emergency diesel generators, which are supplying power for critical safety equipment. Hannah said the agency was not immediately aware of any damage at nuclear power plants in the Southeast.
Obama and many of the nation’s leaders were out of town on August vacation when the quake struck at 1:51 p.m. EDT (1751 GMT). The shaking was felt on the Martha’s Vineyard golf course as Obama was just starting a round.
At the Pentagon in northern Virginia, a low rumbling built to the point that the building was shaking. People ran into the corridors of the government’s biggest building and as the shaking continued there were shouts of “Evacuate! Evacuate!”
The U.S. Park Service evacuated and closed all National Mall monuments and memorials. At Reagan National Airport outside Washington, ceiling tiles fell during a few seconds of shaking. Authorities announced it was an earthquake and all flights were put on hold.
Amtrak said its trains along the Northeast Corridor between Baltimore and Washington were operating at reduced speeds and crews were inspecting stations and railroad infrastructure before returning to normal.
In New York, the 26-story federal courthouse in lower Manhattan began swaying and hundreds of people were seen leaving the building. Court officers weren’t letting people back in.
More than 12 million people live close enough to the quake’s epicenter to feel shaking, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
East Coast earthquakes are far less common than in the West, but they tend to be felt over a broad area. That’s because the crust is not as mangled and fractured, allowing seismic waves to travel without interruption.
“The waves are able to reverberate and travel pretty happily out for miles,” said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough.
Social media site Twitter lit up with reports of the earthquake from people using the site up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard.
“People pouring out of buildings and onto the sidewalks and Into Farragut Park in downtown DC …,” tweeted Republican strategist Kevin Madden.
John Gurlach, air traffic controller at the Morgantown Municipal Airport was in a 40-foot (12-meter) tower when the earth trembled.
“There were two of us looking at each other saying, ‘What’s that?'” he said, even as a commuter plane was landing. “It was noticeably shaking. It felt like a B-52 unloading.”
Immediately, the phone rang from the nearest airport in Clarksburg, and a computer began spitting out green strips of paper — alerts from other airports in New York and Washington issuing ground stops “due to earthquake.”