Holy Cow – An Earthquake!!!

Photo by PoPville flickr user Laura_Grageda

Wow, I was just sitting in my office in Petworth and my lamp about fell off the desk. The room shook pretty violently for what felt like 30 seconds. I’ve gotten emails from Georgetown to Capitol Hill to Columbia Heights all saying the same thing.

Anyone notice any damage?

I’m hearing lots of buildings are being evacuated downtown.

More updates when they become available.

That’s to all who sent the details:

“5.8 (Preliminary magnitude — update expected within 15 minutes)
Date-Time

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 17:51:03 UTC
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 01:51:03 PM at epicenter

Location 37.875°N, 77.908°W
Depth 6 km (3.7 miles) set by location program
Region VIRGINIA
Distances

15 km (9 miles) S (179°) from Mineral, VA
18 km (12 miles) SSE (154°) from Louisa, VA
26 km (16 miles) ENE (58°) from Columbia, VA
54 km (34 miles) NW (314°) from Richmond, VA
139 km (87 miles) SW (214°) from Washington, DC”

DCFireems tweets at 2:16pm:

“It is advised to Shelter-in-place unless the bldg has damage & unsafe – There are reports of damaged bldgs, but none confirmed at this time”

Update 2:30pm a PoPville twitter follower writes:

“15th &Euclid – Salvadorean Ecuadorian embassy have a huge brick chimney facing the alley & it completely crumbled & blocked alley entrance.”

Update 2:37pm WMATA tweets:

“Metrorail system is open and operating with significant delays. All trains reduced to 15 mph due to ongoing emergency track inspection.”

Downtown 2pm:

Photo of Farragut Square by PoPville flickr user philliefan99