New Jersey Hit by 159th Aftershock Since April Quake

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(TNS) – New Jersey was rocked Wednesday morning by a 2.6 magnitude aftershock, the 159th after early April’s 4.8 magnitude earthquake in the Garden State’s Hunterdon County.

The 7:01 a.m. aftershock that struck Wednesday occurred less than a mile north-northwest of Somerset County’s Gladstone, about 50 miles southwest of midtown Manhattan, and could be felt as far north as Wayland, Massachusetts, according to “Did You Feel It” reports submitted to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Most of the aftershocks, which also include a 2.9 magnitude one Saturday morning near Peapack- Gladstone, have registered below 2.0 magnitude. This weekend’s tremor caused no reported “damage to structures, roadways or infrastructure,” the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management said early Saturday afternoon.

The April 5 quake that occurred in central New Jersey was felt about 45 miles east in New York, as well as in Philadelphia and Delaware, per the USGS. The government agency noted that as many as more than 42 million people are believed to have felt the quake, which was dubbed the third-worst in the region in 240 years.

Researchers suspect it occurred near the Ramapo fault that hits points in New York State, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to NJ.com, and those throughout the five boroughs reported shaking buildings to emergency services.

“A lot of people who ran out of the building said they were thinking that the [Verrazano] Bridge was going,” Tommy Mullan, an electrician at Brooklyn’s Fort Hamilton Army Base, next to the bridge, told the Daily News of those in his building.

Gov. Hochul noted the tremor was “one of the largest earthquakes on the East Coast to occur in the last century.

“It’s been a very unsettling day to say the least,” she said at an Albany press briefing.

Those in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Delaware, Baltimore, and parts of Connecticut reported feeling the 4.0 magnitude aftershock that occurred that evening.