25-8 NEWS SOURCE: August 2011

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

EARTHQUAKE Rocks the US Capital 5.8 magnitude

A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Mineral, Virginia, 87 miles outside of Washington, D.C., today. You can see the White House appear to shake as the Secret Service walks on its roof in the video above.

Shaking could be felt from Toronto to New York all the way to North Carolina at close to 2 p.m. this afternoon. The quake lasted 45 seconds, and is one of the largest ever to hit the East Coast.

The Pentagon, Capitol and White House were all evacuated, according to the Associated Press.

Roll Call says the Capitol was evacuated after staffers saw "chandeliers...swinging from side to side." According to an eyewitness on Twitter, the National Cathedral is damaged, with some of its stones falling off altogether.

But no fatalities have been reported so far, and the damage appears to be relatively minimal.

Many people trying to make cell phone calls in the area reported having trouble finding service. Craig Fugate, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, used Twitter to ask Washington residents to "try to stay off your cell phone if it is not an emergency."

Office workers stood outside Dupont Circle in Washington, waiting to be allowed back in to their buildings after the tremor, reports Laura Rozen, who writes The Envoy blog for Yahoo! News. While there were reports that the National Monument was "tilted," Yahoo! Ticket reporter Chris Moody went to the scene and found it looking fine. The grounds within 1,000 feet of the monument were closed, he reported.

Two nuclear reactors in Virginia were automatically shut off after the quake, but no damage has been reported, according to Reuters . A nuclear power plant near the epicenter of the quake is designed to survive up to a 6.1-magnitude quake, according to the People's Alliance for Clean Energy.