Or just call it a 'mysterious accident involving the earth's shifting of geothermal plates and tectonic shifting caused by years of built up stress within the earth's crust.'
Quoting from Joel Rosenberg's take on the Shaking Happening:
Two rare earthquakes have hit the U.S. in two days — a 5.9 magnitude tremor epicentered in southern Virginia on Tuesday shook the White House, Capitol and Pentagon and was felt up and down the Eastern seaboard; and the largest earthquake in Colorado and New Mexico four decades occurred on Monday.
Until now, I’d never experienced an earthquake before. While the one here in hte D.C. area was relatively mild (compared to the recent one in Japan, for example), it made me think of the column I wrote last month, entitled, “The Lord is shaking the nations physically, spiritually, financially: Why, and how should we respond?” A few excerpts might be worth reconsidering today:
* “Americans, too, are being shaken. We face arguably the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Nearly half of all Americans believe we are heading towards another Great Depression. Unemployment is over 9%. Housing foreclosures are skyhigh. People have lost enormous sums of money due to depressed housing prices and stock market volatility. The federal government is trying to spend our way to prosperity but is making things worse. Our annual federal budget deficit topped $1.3 trillion last year. This year, it looks like the feds will spend more than $1.5 trillion beyond what they are taking in in revenue. Our debt is skyrocketing. The U.S. is now on the verge of financial default, and hampered further by political ineptitude in Washington that threatens to comp0und an already precarious situation.
- “What if these events are not all random? What if the God of the Bible is allowing these to happen to shake us, to wake us, to get our attention, that we might turn to Him and ask Him to have mercy on us and help us?
- “The Lord said through the ancient Hebrew Prophet Haggai that the nations would be shaken in the future. “For thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land. I will shake all the nations….I am going to shake the heavens and the earth. I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations.” (Haggai 2:6, 7, 21, 22)”
Now would be a good time to rededicate ourselves to praying and fasting for America and Israel at this critical time and turning our hearts to spending more time in the Scriptures.
Magnitude 5.8 Earthquake Hits Virginia, shocks America's East Coast
An unusually strong magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck central Virginia Tuesday afternoon and sent tremors along the East Coast, which prompted office buildings from Washington D.C. to New York to be evacuated.
There were no immediate reports of injury or serious structural damage.
The earthquake struck near Mineral, Va., more than three miles below sea level, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Mineral is town 83 miles from D.C. and has been known for its seismic activity, but seldom produces a substantial earthquake.
Most of downtown D.C. was evacuated, including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and other office buildings. Pictures on the wall in the Capitol building reportedly fell and panicked workers ran to the exits, apparently fearing a 9/11-style attack. Workers were initially told not to re-enter the buildings, but were later allowed to enter the Capitol building.
Marine helicopters were seen hovering above the D.C, and there were reports that the Washington Monument may be tilting.
The press corp with President Obama in Martha's Vineyard said they felt slight shaking. Obama told reporters that he did not feel the tremor. Attorney General Eric Holder has been evacuated from the Department of Justice.
Obama and many of the nation's leaders were out of town on August vacation when the quake struck at 1:51 p.m. local time.
"People pouring out of buildings and onto the sidewalks and Into Farragut Park in downtown DC...," GOP strategist Kevin Madden tweeted, MyFoxDC.com reported.
At Reagan National Airport outside Washington, ceiling tiles fell during a few seconds of shaking. Authorities put all flights on hold.
A spokesman for Washington National Cathedral said at least three of the four pinnacles on the central tower have fallen off and the central tower appears to be leaning.
New York also felt tremors from the earthquake.
Buildings in New York City shook briefly and the FBI building was evacuated. Flights resumed at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Airport, where control towers were previously evacuated. Evacuations were demanded as north as Canada.
Federal officials say two nuclear reactors were taken offline near quake site in Virginia; there was no damage reported. Indian Point, a power plant in New York, said on Twitter that there are no issues at the facility.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said in a statement that it is monitoring the situation and in "close contact" with federal and state partners.
The East Coast gets earthquakes, but usually smaller ones and is less prepared than California or Alaska for shaking. The Washington area has had small, infrequent earthquakes over the years, including a 2.5-magnitude quake in 1997 that was within 25 to 30 miles of Friday's quake and a 2.3-magnitude quake in 1996 that was within 15 miles
Phone companies said they are being overwhelmed with phone calls, but said none of their infrastructure have been damaged.
FEMA requested that the public use e-mail or text messages in non-emergency cases so emergency officials can continue to receive and respond to urgent calls.
U.S. weather service says no tsunami expected after East Coast.
Subways in New York have not been affected, but the Metro in D.C. has been cancelled.
Amtrak said its trains along the Northeast Corridor between Baltimore and Washington were operating at reduced speeds and crews were inspecting stations and railroad infrastructure before returning to normal.
An unusually strong magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck central Virginia Tuesday afternoon and sent tremors along the East Coast, which prompted office buildings from Washington D.C. to New York to be evacuated.
There were no immediate reports of injury or serious structural damage.
The earthquake struck near Mineral, Va., more than three miles below sea level, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Mineral is town 83 miles from D.C. and has been known for its seismic activity, but seldom produces a substantial earthquake.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The strong earthquake that rattled the eastern United States on Tuesday was highly unusual in its severity, though it was centered in a part of Virginia known for smaller quakes, seismologists said.
The initial earthquake, which registered a magnitude of 5.9 just before 2 p.m. EDT, was felt from the Carolinas to New England.
"One of this size is highly unusual," said Karen Fisher, a professor of seismology at Brown University and president-elect of the seismology section at the American Geophysical Union. "This is the largest earthquake by far that I am aware of occurring there in recent history."
The quake's epicenter in central Virginia is in an area the U.S. Geological Survey calls the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, Fisher said by phone from Providence, Rhode Island.
While the strength of the quake was unusual, the wide spread of the shock waves was common for the East Coast, according to Peggy Hellweg, a research seismologist at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory in California.
This is largely due to the difference in the terrain, Hellweg said in a telephone interview.
"Our ground is all of this chopped-up stuff ... like a pile of marbles," Hellweg said of California's geology, which means that the waves from a quake don't spread out all that far.
In the Eastern United States, she said, "What you've got there is gorgeous bedrock and ... the waves propagate beautifully."
Another difference between the East and West U.S. coasts is that the West Coast is over the boundary between two active tectonic plates, the North American and the Pacific, and the force of these plates sliding against each other generates quakes regularly, Fisher said.
In the East, she said, "There's no driving engine in terms of the two plates sliding past each other ... so that's why it's much more unusual."
David Oppenheimer, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said aftershocks should be expected for months.
"You'll feel magnitude 3 earthquakes over great distances ... I would expect tens of magnitude 3s for earthquakes of this size," Oppenheimer said from Menlo Park, California.
(Additional reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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