DALLAS (AP) — East Coast residents were jolted Friday by a 4.8-magnitude earthquake centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, with weak rumblings felt as far away as Baltimore and the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. No life-threatening injuries or major damage have been reported.
Here’s what to know about earthquakes on the East Coast.
The Richter scale, developed by Charles F. Richter in the 1930s, is no longer widely used. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, as more seismograph stations were installed worldwide to calculate the size of an earthquake, Richter’s method was valid only for certain distance and frequency ranges.
Seismometers are instruments used to record the ground’s motion. Magnitudes are measures of an earthquake’s size. They range from 2.5 or less, which are usually not felt, to 8.0 or higher, which can cause great damage.
Earthquakes large enough to be felt by a lot of people are relatively uncommon on the East Coast. Since 1950 there have been about 20 quakes with a magnitude above 4.5, according to the United States Geological Survey. That's compared with over 1,000 on the West Coast.
That said, East Coast quakes like the one experienced Friday do happen.
“There’s a history of similar-sized earthquakes in the New York region over the last few hundred years,” said Jessica Thompson Jobe from the USGS’ Earthquake Hazards Program.
In 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake near Mineral, Virginia, shook East Coast residents over a wide swath from Georgia to Maine and even southeastern Canada. The USGS called it one of the most widely felt quakes in North American history.
The quake cost $200 to $300 million in property damages, including to the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
The West Coast lies on a boundary where sections of Earth’s crust rub together, causing stress and slippage along fault lines that generate earthquakes relatively often.
East Coast quakes like Friday's are caused by compression over time of hard, brittle rock deep underground, according to Robert Thorson, an earth sciences professor at the University of Connecticut. “It’s like having a big block of ice in a vise and you are just slowly cranking up the vise,” he said. "Eventually, you’re going to get some crackling on it.”
These East Coast quakes can be harder to pinpoint. And they tend to affect a broader area. That’s because colder, harder East Coast rocks are better at spreading the rattling energy from an earthquake.
The distribution of cities across the East Coast also means that more people are around to experience the effects of a quake.
“We also have population centers over a large part of the northeast,” said Leslie Sonder, a geophysicist at Dartmouth College, “So a lot of people around here feel the earthquake.”
USGS experts say there is a risk of aftershocks for weeks to months, which are expected after any earthquake. They recommend paying attention to emergency messaging from local officials.
To keep safe from shakes while sleeping, remove any furniture or objects that could fall and injure you or others.
If you feel shaking, drop where you are. Cover your head and neck with one arm, crawl under a table for shelter and hold on. If there’s no shelter nearby, grasp your head and neck with both hands until the shaking stops.
AP writers John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, and Pat Eaton-Robb in Storrs, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A display shows the news about an earthquake in New York City at News Corp Headquarters, Friday, April 5, 2024, in New York. An earthquake centered between New York and Philadelphia shook skyscrapers and suburbs across the northeastern U.S. Friday, causing no major damage but startling millions of people in an area unaccustomed to such tremors. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 16 people, including two children, hours after reports emerged of a ceasefire agreement. The persistent fighting threatened an interim agreement between the United States and Iran to end the war in the Middle East.
Seven people remained trapped under the rubble after the strikes hit the southern town of Nabatiyeh and nearby villages, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.
Mediators were scrambling to halt the fighting between Israel and the militant Lebanese Hezbollah group, after a heavy exchange on Friday killed at least 47 people in Lebanon and four Israeli soldiers.
An Israeli military official said Hezbollah had fired more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon overnight, prompting the military to start targeting the militant group there. The official spoke anonymously in line with regulations. The army said it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets and militants in southern Lebanon, including rocket-launching positions and Hezbollah command centers.
On Friday, Israeli ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, said on X that Israel “remains firmly committed to an immediate ceasefire” if Hezbollah honors the agreement and ceases hostilities.
On Saturday, Hezbollah said it had committed to the ceasefire but blamed Israel for violating it several times on Friday night. A statement issued by the group's military wing said it would abide by the ceasefire but would also repel attacks by Israeli troops.
Hezbollah and Israel went to war just days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, with Hezbollah firing rockets and drones at northern Israel and Israel seizing large swaths of southern Lebanon.
The interim U.S.-Iran agreement signed this week has already reopened the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had closed as the war unfolded — cutting off the global economy from significant supplies of oil and natural gas. The deal also envisages the relaunch of talks on Iran’s nuclear program, a core issue in the war.
Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are signatories to the deal, which calls for a halt to military operations in Lebanon and for the country's sovereignty to be respected. With the fighting continuing, the accord is under threat and U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland, planned to start Friday, have been delayed, with no new date announced.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep Israeli forces in southern Lebanon until any threat to Israel is eliminated. Hezbollah has refused to halt its attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing from Lebanon, which Iran says is also a condition of the deal.
A new round of U.S.-backed talks between the Lebanese government and Israel is expected to take place in Washington next week.
A strike on the village of Barish killed four members of a family, parents and two children. In Arab Salim village, a body was pulled from a destroyed house, and in the villages of Doueir and Kfar Rumman, drone strikes killed a person on a motorcycle and a Lebanese soldier. Nine people were killed in strikes in the villages of Qannarit, Sohmor and Shehour.
Plumes of smoke rose into the sky over southern Lebanon and Israeli jets flew low over the coastal city of Tyre on Saturday. Residents there told The Associated Press they were relieved that Tyre had been spared in recent days but the sounds of Israeli planes reminded them the war is not over.
Many doubted a ceasefire — even if agreed on — would hold.
“Our entire lives would change if there’s a ceasefire,” said Hussein Khoshman, a Tyre resident.
Netanyahu's office did not immediately comment on the ceasefire efforts. On Friday, Netanyahu posted on X that, on his orders, the Israeli army had “struck powerfully” 150 Hezbollah targets, killing dozens of militants.
Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the Israeli forces were operating in a “forward defense zone” and would continue doing so.
Iranian officials did not travel as planned to Switzerland, insisting that the fighting in Lebanon must stop before the talks can take place. U.S. Vice President JD Vance also postponed his trip.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told the semi-official ISNA news agency on Saturday that Pakistan's interior minister will arrive in Iran as part of continued negotiation efforts. Baghaei had said earlier that consultations through mediators were ongoing regarding the next phase of negotiations to draft a final U.S.-Iran agreement.
Because the initial deal was signed digitally earlier this week, the talks in Switzerland were not urgent, and plans were underway to hold a meeting in the coming days, he said.
The Swiss foreign ministry said diplomats were in talks on Saturday in the town of Bürgenstock on how to implement the U.S.-Iran deal, without offering details.
The talks in Switzerland were expected to focus on Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran maintains it's for peaceful purposes only, though it has a large stockpile of uranium enriched to higher levels that are a step short of weapons' grade. That uranium could be used to build multiple atomic bombs, should Tehran choose to do so, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Those talks are expected to be difficult. The 2015 nuclear deal, which U.S. President Donald Trump scrapped during his first term, took more than 18 months to negotiate.
The interim deal gives negotiators 60 days to come up with a nuclear agreement, but that can be extended. It outlines lucrative incentives if Iran does reach a new agreement, including the eventual lifting of all international sanctions and a $300 billion fund for postwar reconstruction.
Iran has already won some concessions. Following the signing of the interim deal, the U.S. lifted its blockade of Iran’s ports and is allowing it to sell its oil freely. The deal also calls for Iran’s assets to be unfrozen — though it’s not clear how quickly.
Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Beirut, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Jamey Keaten in Zurich, Switzerland, contributed to this report.
Buildings damaged by Israeli strikes are seen through shattered glass from the Jabal Amel Hospital in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli military strike in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
