NEWARK— A rare earthquake centered in Virginia rattled parts of New Jersey and New York shortly before 2 p.m. today, causing buildings to sway in cities and towns across the region.

There were no immediate reports of any injuries or structural damage, but the quake rattled nerves.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that a magnitude 5.9 earthquake hit at 1:51 p.m. and the epicenter was northwest of Richmond, Va., about halfway to Charlottesville. The Associated Press is reporting the quake was felt in Washington, D.C., New York City and North Carolina.

The quake was later downgraded to a magnitude 5.8.

U.S.G.S. Geophysicist Julie Dutton said an earthquake of this magnitude is rare for the East Coast but that the effects are felt widely in our region because quakes move more easily through the bedrock.

UPDATE ON TUESDAY'S EAST COAST EARTHQUAKE

"It is definitely unusual to have a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in Virginia,'' Dutton said.

The East Coast quake followed a 5.3 magnitude shaker in Colorado, but Dutton said the two events most likely are not related.

"It's actually about 6 kilometers deep, which is pretty typical for quakes in the East," he said. "They're very shallow."

About the quake:

Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the USGS, said the magnitude of the earthquake might change once more data is available.

The 5.8-magnitude earthquake that was felt shortly before 2 p.m. in several states along the East Coast this afternoon originated in central Virginia, more than 300 miles from Newark.

Blakeman said there are fault lines throughout the East Coast but scientists have yet to identify where the main ones would be. He said the makeup of the earth's surface in the East Coast ensured that the quake was felt throughout the region.

Virginia's largest recorded earthquake was in 1897 and was of the same magnitude as the one today, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The last earthquake in the greater New York area was recorded at 1.6 magnitude on June 9 in South Plainfield.



"The crust in the Eastern part of the U.S. carries the quake much more energetically," Blakeman said. "This will have been felt all the way up into New England, West, and down into the Carolinas."



As he was speaking, Blakeman said the USGS had just registered an aftershock at roughly 2:40 p.m.



"There absolutely will be aftershocks when you have a good-size earthquake that's shallow in the crust," Blakeman said.

Jonathan Husch, chair of the department of geological, environmental and marine sciences at Rider University in Lawrenceville estimated the intensity was about a 3 in New Jersey, meaning most people felt a mild shaking, as if a large truck was passing their building or house.

"Earthquakes in the eastern part of the U.S. are not unusual. They're not common, but they're not unusual," he said.

The quake in Virginia may be the largest ever recorded in that area, Husch added.



Many scientists who study earthquakes say the New York City area is overdue for a moderate earthquake that will damage buildings.



"This wasn't it," Husch said.

AROUND NEW JERSEY

In South Brunswick, police Sgt. James Ryan said the shaking brought staff out of their offices and immediately jammed the township’s emergency lines.

"The 911 line is flooding with calls right now," Ryan said at 2 p.m. "People want to know what happened. They want to know if there was an explosion."

The quake was felt in the offices of Alcatel-Lucent in Murray Hill, Union County.

Liza Ottesen, who works as a manager there, said her whole desk area started "swaying."

"Everything started to sway very slightly, gently back and forth. It was very odd; I'm in the middle of a large building and nothing sways back and forth," she said. "I stood up and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the same thing, and everybody was doing what I was doing."

She said there was no damage, but described the feeling as "strange."

"It was a swaying that is not supposed to happen to a building," she said.

Middletown Police also reported some minor damage at a Sears store.

“A couple ceiling tiles fell out,” Sgt. Paul Bailey said. “And maybe the supports that hold them up. Nothing earth shattering, pardon the pun.”

In Plainfield, employees in the Park Madison building — a mix of local and state government offices — were evacuated after the tremor, according to James Pellettiere, a Union County spokesman.

“They were quickly brought back into the building ,” Pellettiere said.

Farther north, in the county’s six-story administration building in Elizabeth, there was a continuous shaking, according to Sebastian D’Elia, another spokesman.

“The building shook a little bit like spaghetti,” said D’Elia, who works on the building’s top floor. It went on for a minute and I kind of got sea sick.”

D'Elia said the county's emergency management office was jammed with calls – a situation being experienced at local 9-1-1 dispatch centers around the state.





There were no reports of widespread power outages caused by the earthquake in the central and southern regions of the state, according to officials at both Jersey Central Power and Lighting and Atlantic City Electric.

There are minor scattered outages reported on PSEG's online outage map. According to PSEG's spokeswoman Karen Johnson, no outages in their coverage area resulted from the earthquake.

At this time, there are very few reports of damage to any infrastructure in the state. Roadways, Bridges and tunnels all seem to be intact. Deptford Township in Gloucester County has reports of a gas leak on one street (Craig Drive) and there have been several residential evacuations at that location.

Gloucester County College also reported a gas leak in one building that has since been evacuated. There were no reports of any injuries.

DOWN THE SHORE

On a packed 26th Street beach in Avalon, the tremors forced people upright in their beach chairs, looking quizzically at each other for 10 seconds until the shaking stopped.

"Do you feel that?" people shouted to each other.

Dozens of beachgoers reached for mobile phones, which quickly overloaded the capacity and prevented most calls from going through.

Why East Coast quakes are different from West Coast quakes

News of the Virginia earthquake was quickly confirmed and spread down the beach as an Army helicopter swooped up the coast at low altitude.

In Cape May, it was more of a shimmy than a quake along the beach. But the odd rumbling underfoot was enough to cause people to break from a lazy afternoon of tanning and sit up from their lounge chairs to look around in amazement at the beach umbrellas wiggling in concert.

Strangers who had ignored each other all day suddenly looked across chairs and blankets to asked in disbelief, "Is this an earthquake?"

It lasted nearly 45 seconds, long enough to convince any doubters and those sunbathers who awoke late from their chairs that it was indeed a quake.

The two-story headquarters for the Manasquan beach operations was closed following the quake after walls buckled and several gaps and cracks opened up, said Walter Wall, the borough beach manager.

The building, constructed in 1954, will be temporarily shored up and evaluated more thoroughly Wednesday. Regardless of the extent of the damage, Wall said, it could hasten plans to rebuild the structure.

“There were plans to get a new building anyway,” Wall said. “So, this may expedite the situation.”

The building is the location for the beach offices, a room for beach emergency responders, lifeguards, and police who patrol the beach and boardwalk after hours. Following the earthquake, Wall said, beach badges were sold just outside the entrance to the building.

PREVIOUS EARTHQUAKES

New Jersey has seen earthquakes before. A series of four hit Morris County in February 2009, with the largest of a magnitude 3.0 at its epicenter in Victory Gardens. A 2.5 magnitude earthquake hit the same area in December 2009. A pair of quakes also hit Somerset County in February 2010, the larger of the two measuring 1.5.



A magnitude 5.0 quake centered near Ottawa, Canada, shook some parts of New Jersey last June, though no damage or injuries were reported.





Since New Jersey earthquakes are often at shallow levels in the ground, witnesses often say they can hear what sound like explosions — which is actually the breakage of rocks as it's happening.

The New Jersey area is due for one of its own, said Alexander Gates, the chairman of earth and environmental sciences at Rutgers-Newark, and an earthquake expert.

The seismic areas of the Garden State are similar to those of Virginia — and the last major one was in 1884, a magnitude 5.5 centered off the coast of Sandy Hook, which pulled houses off their foundations. In geologic terms, that means the state can expect one like Virginia’s Tuesday trembler any moment, likely in the next 20 years, Gates said.

“We’re overdue for one about that size right here,” Gates said.

Compiled by Star-Ledger staff writers Tomas Dinges, Mike Frassinelli, David Giambusso, Dan Goldberg, Kelly Heyboer, Ryan Hutchins, Eunice Lee, Len Melisurgo, Steven Strunsky, MaryAnn Spoto, Julia Terruso, Susan Todd and James Queally.