NEW YORK. Moments of fear in the north-east of the United States where the earth began to tremble again after thirteen years. For a few seconds, at 10.23am yesterday morning (4.23pm in Italy), a 4.8 magnitude earthquake, with its epicenter in New Jersey, propagated upwards and downwards, also shaking the Big Apple. The origin of the earthquake, as reported by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), was detected in the town of Lebanon, about 80 km from Manhattan, from where the wave spread across a large part of the north-east of the USA from Norfolk, Virginia, all the way to Maine. Other earthquakes were felt in New York, this time with a magnitude of 4.4, weaker than the previous one at 00.30 on Saturday night, Italian time.
“We haven’t recorded such a strong earthquake since 2011, we are not used to having earthquakes in this area”, recalls the governor of New York Kathy Hochul, underlining that “there are no indications of damage to buildings or dangerous situations” . From Albany, the capital of the Empire State, Hochul reassured the population by explaining that he had put numerous teams of engineers to work to evaluate the state of bridges and infrastructure, including the New York City subway. US President Joe Biden was also informed and asked his staff to remain in contact with local authorities.
As a precaution, immediately after the quake, US aviation authorities temporarily blocked John Fitzgerald Kennedy and La Guardia airports in New York and Newark in New Jersey in order to check whether the earthquake had caused any damage, and flights suffered delays of about an hour. And the Holland Tunnel, located under the Hudson River between Manhattan and Jersey City, was closed for inspection. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he had “activated the State Operations Center for matters of maximum urgency, but please do not call unless there is a true emergency.”
However, the images arriving from the United Nations will be consigned to history, where the diplomats of the Security Council, meeting for a session on the Middle East, interrupted the work for a few seconds after the room located between the second and third floors of the Palace di Vetro trembled for a moment. Those present looked at each other asking: “but was there an earthquake?”. A shiver that froze those present but without consequences, just a scare. The session resumed later.