According to USGS, an earthquake struck the Richmond, Virginia area on Tuesday evening. At 5:28 pm, a magnitude 2.8 earthquake struck outside of Richmond near Wyndham from a depth of 1 km. Due to how shallow the earthquake was, it was felt/heard by many people; according to USGS, more than 1,300 people reported it to USSG via their “Did you feel it?” website reporting tool. There were no reports of damage or injuries.
Today’s earthquake was south and west of another earthquake to strike the Richmond area last July. And the July quake came after an April quake that generated more than 350 “Did you feel it?” reports to the USGS earthquake website.
An earthquake struck central Virginia in mid October 2023. That earthquake was slightly stronger but generated less “Did you feel it?” reports. That magnitude 2.2 event struck near Stuarts Draft from a depth of 8.5 km. Stuarts Draft is located in the central part of the state, west of Charlottesville and Richmond. That October quake was the second earthquake to strike Virginia in the 8 days leading up to this one. Prior to those October 2023 earthquakes, the last struck in July when a pair of earthquakes hit the state.
On June 20, 2023 a magnitude 2.3 event struck near New Castle. The 2023 October earthquake was weaker than today’s but still forced schools to close in one county. Two weeks before, another earthquake struck north and west of Richmond.
Virginia doesn’t have much seismic activity but earthquakes can occur here from time to time. According to the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory, Virginia has had over 160 earthquakes since 1977 of which 16% were felt. This equates to an average of one earthquake occurring every month with two felt each year.
Virginia can get damaging earthquakes too. The strongest in modern times was the magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck near Mineral, Virginia, on August 23, 2011. That seismic event was widely felt–from Maine to Georgia, west to Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Chicago, and southeastern Canada–over a broad area inhabited by one-third of the U.S. population. When the earth stopped shaking, more than 148,000 people reported their experience of the earthquake on the USGS website. The total economic losses from the earthquake were about $200−300 million, which included millions of dollars in damage to the National Cathedral, the Armed Forces Retirement Home, and the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., as well as minor to major damage to almost 600 residential properties. It was the largest and most damaging earthquake in the eastern United States since the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina earthquake. Damage in the epicentral area represents Modified Mercalli intensity VIII, with many instances of broken and collapsed masonry walls and chimneys, as well as shifting of structures on their foundations. Significant damage occurred to structures at distances in excess of 80 miles to the northeast in the Washington DC area. The rupture process was a complex reverse fault event, initiating at a depth of 8 km.
