“It felt like a car hit my house in Buffalo. I jumped out of bed,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said. Of Monday’s 3.8-magnitude earthquake.
A 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck near Buffalo, New York on Monday morning. The strongest recorded in the region in 40 years.
The quake struck at 6:15 a.m. 1.24 miles east-northeast of West Seneca, New York. With a depth of 1.86 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said no damage had been reported so far in West Seneca. A suburb of Buffalo near the US-Canada border.
He said he spoke with Erie County Department of Homeland Security. And Emergency Services Deputy Commissioner Gregory J. Butcher. Who said “confirmed earthquakes were felt as far north as Niagara Falls and as far south as Orchard Park.”
“It felt like a car hit my house in Buffalo. I jumped out of bed,” Poloncarz said.
Yareb Altawel, a seismologist at the National Earthquake Information Center. Said earthquakes in the Northeast “happen all the time.” And earthquakes can strike anywhere at any time.
Since 1983, the West Seneca area has had 24 earthquakes above size 2.5. With Monday’s being the region’s largest ever.
Another 3.8 size earthquake hit western New York in 1999, Altawil said. “On the scale of earthquakes, 3.8 is not that big. But the crust of that region is old crust. It’s older and colder, and the ability to move seismic waves vs. sediments – that’s why people can feel it more. That is why earthquakes of size 1.0 can be felt in some places,” he said.
Altawil said the 3.8-magnitude earthquake was. “Not a major earthquake that you would expect to cause damage.”
Existing cracks and fault lines can cause earthquakes this far inland, he said.
Altawil said, there is nothing unusual about this shock.
“I’d say it’s pretty normal. There was one in March 2022, a 2.6, another 2 in 2020. It’s happening at lower levels in the region,” he said.
Around the world, an initial 7.8-magnitude quake struck southeast Turkey hours. After a 7.5-magnitude quake shook buildings and killed more. Than 3,600 people in the country and neighboring Syria. Tolls are expected to rise sharply on both sides of the border.
