A magnitude 3.0 earthquake rattled parts of northern New Jersey on Saturday night, with tremors felt across the region – including in New York City – according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The quake struck at approximately 10:22 p.m. and was centered in Hasbrouck Heights, Bergen County.
The USGS reported the epicenter as 0 kilometers northeast of the town, indicating a shallow event likely responsible for the widespread sensation of shaking.
Residents in multiple counties – including Jersey City, Bergen, Morris, and Essex – said they felt the tremor, as did people in Harrison and East Orange, Patch reported.
The shaking extended beyond New Jersey, with reports of movement coming in from parts of New York City and even as far as Westchester and Rockland counties in upstate New York.
New York City residents also reported hearing a boom along with the vibration.
Despite the surprise, no injuries or property damage have been reported as of Saturday night.
A magnitude 3.0 earthquake rattled parts of northern New Jersey on Saturday night, with tremors felt across the region – including in New York City (pictured)
Social media users were quick to respond to the quake.
‘I was laying in bed and suddenly there was a rumble, a bang and my bed shook! I thought my furnace exploded,’ one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
‘I went down to the basement to check it and I could hear all my neighbors gathering outside and that’s when we realized it was an earthquake.’
‘Felt nothing on LI but my sis was who happens to be in Astoria did! She thought it was the tenant upstairs vacuuming, and it lasted pretty long she said!’ another user wrote.
‘Felt on Staten Island. Was like a ripple shockwave. Shook my house a bit,’ wrote another.
The late-night quake comes just a day after a massive earthquake off the coast of Russia was detected more than 4,700 miles away in Upstate New York, highlighting the incredible reach of seismic waves.
Data from the USGS showed the tremor struck about 84 miles east-southeast of Kamchatska at around 7:24pm EST on Friday.
With a magnitude of 8.8, it ranks as the sixth strongest earthquake ever recorded.
Meteorologist Howard Mange revealed that shockwaves from the megaquake were picked up by a seismometer in Binghamton, New York.
The first waves to arrive were the primary waves, or P-waves, reaching the seismometer about 11 minutes after the initial quake.
These are the fastest seismic waves, traveling in the same direction as the wave itself, similar to sound waves, and are typically the first to be recorded following an earthquake.
These are the fastest seismic waves, moving in the same direction as the wave itself, similar to a sound wave, and are the first to be recorded after an earthquake.
Approximately 22 minutes after the event, the seismometer detected secondary waves, or S-waves. These slower waves move particles side-to-side and cannot travel through liquids.
Finally, around 36 minutes after the quake, the slowest but often most powerful surface waves arrived in New York.
‘These waves travel as a group around the surface of the earth and are usually the largest waves seen on the seismogram,’ Mange shared on Facebook.
‘The further away the earthquake, the more spread out the surface waves are in time.’
Alex Nikulin, associate professor at Binghamton University, explained that an earthquake that powerful is capable of sending waves around the world multiple times.
‘Importantly, they are not felt at that point by humans because you’ve attenuate out most of the frequencies that would have been felt, but they’re felt by sensors.
He told local 12News that ‘it was the largest recorded in the region since 1952,’ referring to the 9.0 magnitude that hit in Kamchatka, Russia – the same location as the tremor that struck this week.
