Thaindian News

Click here for information about 2011 East Coast quake
By Ranjan Bhaduri
Maryland, July 16, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Gaithersburg residents were jolted in their sleep as a 3.6-magnitude earthquake hit the region around 5:00 AM in the morning. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake tremors were felt over 20 miles north-west of Washington. Reportedly, this is the first major earthquake in the region over years since 1974. It is also the first earthquake to have reached a magnitude of 3.6 on the Richter Scale.

Amy Vaughan who happens to be a geophysicist with the USGS National Earthquake Information Center called it to be “significant event” for the area. Not only Maryland but a total of 5,500 people from all over the West Virginia and Delaware reported to have felt the tremors. Anne Ngunjiri, a 30-year-old resident of Gaithersburg described the tremors to be a “loud plane flying really low”. Another resident Judy Rudolph (64) informed the media that her house began to shake as she was writing an email and the tremors felt like an “explosion”. The largest earthquake that was recorded within a radius of 75-kilometer radius of Gaithersberg was a 2.7-magnitude tremor way back in the year of 1993.

Amy Vaughn underlined the fact that these kind of tremors are a common phenomenon in the eastern Rockies. She said that the earthquakes occur from minor faults which were left behind when the continent took it’s shape. In Maryland itself, there are numerous faults which readily accounts for the earthquake. Washington’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency reported that there has been no injuries or any kind of property damage. The last time Maryland witnessed an earthquake was way back in 2007 which had it tremors being felt 5 miles northwest of Baltimore and measured a magnitude of 1.7 on the Richter Scale.