Strong earthquake rattles Washington, New York, Virginia and Toronto area

Wednesday, August 24th 2011 - 04:24 UTC

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A strong earthquake rattled the United States East Coast, sending tremors as far as Canada, shaking Washington and scaring thousands of office workers who fled onto the streets. Read full article

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ElaineB
Speaking to people in DC yesterday they are just not used to earthquakes on the East Coast. The first thought of most people was that this was another terrorist attack - given the 10 year anniversary is imminent - hence the fear.

When I was in Chile someone told me that the dogs start barking just before an earthquake/tremour because animals sense it first. In DC yesterday the police horses started to get jittery just before the quake. Has anyone here ever heard/experienced something similar?
Aug 24th, 2011 - 10:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Marcos Alejandro
1. An earthquake sends out two waves, many animals feel the first wave prior of the jolt(second wave).
Aug 25th, 2011 - 03:49 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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Rufus
To expand on what Marcos has said, earthquakes have been known to produce extremely low frequency radio waves that might be detectable by animals (not every earthquake will, but some/most do).
These radio waves, being EM radiation will travel far faster than any pressure wave, and depending on how far away from the epicentre you're measuring (and assuming that they're generated at all), there can be a noticable delay between them and the earthquake hitting, so the animals would sense something before the shockwave hit.

As a means of early warning it's just about useless, but it has been seen in many species, most oddly enough toads seem to be especially sensitive.
Aug 26th, 2011 - 10:52 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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