4.8 magnitude New Jersey earthquake felt across the Philly region; ‘no significant issues’ in city, officials say

Derrick Pitts’s first thought — “that was a mighty big truck” that just rumbled past his house — likely coincided with that of millions of other people in the Philadelphia and New York regions at 10:23 a.m. Friday.

But he quickly surmised this was different, “a low frequency vibration.” Pitts, a trained geologist who also is the Franklin Institute’s chief astronomer, knew he had just experienced a shelf-shaking earthquake.

What the U.S. Geological Survey identified as an earthquake of magnitude 4.8 on the USGS scale, its epicenter was believed to be an “inactive” fault in north-central New Jersey, rocked one of the nation’s densest population corridors Friday.

The U.S. Geological Survey has measured 11 aftershocks in the aftermath of the earthquake centered in north-central New Jersey, including one that registered a 4 on the Richter scale around 6 p.m.

Ten minor aftershocks occurred within about three hours of the original quake, detected at occurred at 10:23 a.m. and was a 4.8 on the Richter scale, according to the USGS data.

The most significant of the smaller aftershocks was rated as a 2.2, a “minor” event on the scale, which might be felt by some people but would cause no damage.

Where were you when Philadelphia experienced the Great (light) Earthquake of 2024?

No, really — a 4.8-magnitude quake centered near Tewksbury, N.J., shook the Philly region Friday morning, with tremors rippling as far up and down the eastern seaboard as Baltimore and Boston.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly told The Inquirer that they have yet to receive reports of “real damage,” and Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management told residents it was monitoring the situation.

Justin Allen was mid-vasectomy on an operating table Friday morning when the room began to shake.

“At first, I sort of assumed it was a train or something,” he wrote to an Inquirer reporter. “But then the surgeon said something along the lines of, ‘That’s an earthquake, right?’”

These are not exactly the words anyone wants to hear during a surgery. “Let alone THAT surgery,” Allen wrote. (A vasectomy is a form of permanent birth control for men that blocks off the vas deferens, the tubes that carry sperm from the scrotum.)

The U.S. Geological Survey reported several minor aftershocks following the Friday morning earthquake in north-central New Jersey.

The impacts would have been negligible and likely not felt by most people. The strongest registered just a 2.2 on the Richter scale, well below any damage level. They were centered a short distance from the original quake, at Whitehouse Station.

Aftershocks are common phenomena following earthquakes.

At the Philadelphia Zoo, the macaws screamed, the gibbons called, the caiman dove into the pond, and the lemurs refused to go outside as an earthquake shook the region Friday morning.

But, “for the most part, it seems that it was pretty uneventful,” said Samantha Nestor, assistant curator of carnivores and ungulates.

Nestor was in front of the kangaroo and emu yard when her husband called, announcing their “entire house shook.”

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker commended the leaders of Philadelphia agencies who coordinated responding to Friday morning's 4.8-magnitude earthquake, which rattled the city's residents but left no injuries or property damage in its wake.

"It's important that you know, we are all working and coordinating together, that we are sharing information, and making sure that Philadelphia and Philadelphians are safe," Parker said during a Friday afternoon news conference.

Parker was flanked by Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr., Police Chief Kevin Bethel, and Dominick Mireles, the director of the Office of Emergency Management.

After the earthquake, a small aftershock occurred that registered a 2 on the Richter scale, said David R. Wunsch, director and state geologist for the Delaware Geological Survey.

He said it emanated from an area within a mile of the original quake.

If you didn’t feel it, you weren’t alone. Wunsch said it occurred around 11:20 a.m. and chances are excellent that a lot of people wouldn’t even have noticed.

Post-earthquake, the Philadelphia School District is fanning its operations engineers across the city to inspect the district’s 216 schools and other buildings, said Monique Braxton, district spokesperson.

“So far, there’s been no damage reported, no injuries reported,” Braxton said.

District schools had already planned to dismiss early Friday because of parent teacher conferences, and the earthquake did not change that plan, Braxton said, “but we’re urging parents to exercise caution, given there may be aftershocks.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told ABC News that the state experienced minimal damage following the 4.8 magnitude earthquake in Northern New Jersey and warned that residents they should be prepared for aftershocks in the near future.

“So far, so good,” Murphy said in the interview with ABC.

Murphy repeatedly said residents should “use common sense” and leave any unstable or damaged structures, especially in preparation for any aftershocks that may hit the area.

Earthquakes can be part of a sequence. People should expect additional earthquakes, called aftershocks, following an earthquake, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Aftershocks can take place hours, days, or months later.

If you feel an aftershock, drop down to the floor, take cover under a table, and hold on to it.

Avoid damaged structures after an earthquake. If you live in a damaged building, go outside and move away from it.

U.S. Geological Survey officials said that after the quake occurred around 10:25 a.m. EDT, the agency logged more than 100,000 reports from people who had experienced the shakes.

For USGS, this was just another day at the office, since 4.8 magnitude earthquakes are common occurrences.

However, it so happened that this one affected a major population center.

While reports of the tremor rattling windows and shaking homes spread quickly throughout Delaware County, no major damage or injuries were called in to first responders, according to County Director of Emergency Services Tim Boyce.

Boyce said that, as a precaution, county officials reached out Friday to Energy Transfer Partners and Colonial Pipeline, operators of pipelines carrying natural gas liquids from Western Pennsylvania to a terminal in Marcus Hook. No anomalies in their systems were reported, Boyce said.

“That’s one of the things we get right on top of in Delaware County,” he added. “So far, so good.”

Most Philadelphia-area hospitals said operations had not been disrupted and that there was no apparent damage caused by Friday morning’s earthquake.

Staff at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Kensington were conducting a “full inspection of all facilities” but had so far found no damage, spokesperson Paul Healy said. Patient care had not been interrupted, he added, and so far no one had come to the emergency department with injuries related to the quake.

Similarly, at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, staff began assessing potential damage “immediately” after the earthquake, spokesperson Wendy Marano said. “At this point, there is no damage to any facilities or injuries,” she wrote in an email.

Though rumbles were felt from Boston to Philadelphia, the town of Lebanon, N.J., was the center of Friday's earthquake chaos.

James Pittinger, Lebanon's mayor, phoned in to speak with MSNBC's Ana Cabrera, saying he was "shaken up" located just several miles from the epicenter of the quake.

Pittinger told Cabrera that he had been working from home when the shake began, knocking items off of his shelves.

Earthquake magnitudes are measured on the Richter scale, with values ranging from 1 – you won’t feel a thing – to the cosmically destructive “extreme” level of 9 and above.

Each order of magnitude represents a 10-fold increase in power. Thus, an earthquake measuring a 4.0 would be 10 times stronger than a 3.0.

The one that occurred Friday morning, a 4.8, would be categorized as “light,” typically resulting in some shaking of indoor objects. It is estimated that up to 15,000 of those occur around the world annually.

The city Department of Public Property has conducted preliminary inspections of public facilities and found no damages, said Joe Grace, a spokesperson for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

Additionally, the Philadelphia International Airport has reopened all runways after finding no damage in initial inspections, Grace said.

Similarly, SEPTA has told the city Office of Emergency Management that the transit system “is reporting no issues at this moment in time,” he said.

A number of area school districts are reporting that students are safe, and their school days are proceeding on normal schedules.

In Upper Darby, "our students, staff, and buildings are safe and secure following the reported earthquake we just felt," Superintendent Dan McGarry told the community in a message.

The Council Rock School District in Bucks County said its central office had confirmed that all students and staff are safe, while buildings are being checked.

The region is not particularly earthquake prone, compared to areas of the world closer to the boundaries between tectonic plates — the nearest to Philadelphia is in the Caribbean.

According to United States Geological Survey records, there have been about 12 other earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 2.5 on the Richter scale over the past 20 years within 80 miles of Philadelphia – roughly the distance between the city and the recent epicenter in Plainfield. Two of those past quakes occurred nearby the New Jersey town.

But most of those were much weaker than the Friday quake.

As so many other people, Derrick Pitts said he “started to feel this low-frequency vibration,” and thought, “whoa, that’s a very big truck.”

As a geologist, who also is the Franklin Institute’s chief astronomer, Pitts said he soon realized that the sensation could have resulted only from an earthquake — in this case not a particularly significant one, but one experienced in one of the nation’s densest population corridors.

Tremors of this magnitude are not all that unusual, he said: The earth is one restless place. “I believe we feel something like this every few years."

The quake evidently was a 4.8 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake was centered near Tewksbury in northern New Jersey, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with a preliminary rating of 4.8 on the Richter scale, said the Franklin Institute’s Derrick Pitts,

While it clearly gave people throughout the Northeast a scare, “these kinds of earthquakes for this region are not unusual,’ said Pitts, who is a trained geologist.