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An earthquake centered in Virginia shook the Eastern Seaboard just before 2 p.m., and was felt as a rumble lasting several seconds in the Boston area. Some buildings in the area were evacuated, while officials inspected them, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage.
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“There are no reports of any damage. We felt it obviously, but it was in Virginia,” said Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. She said the mayor had been on the phone continuously with the city’s police commissioner, fire commissioner, and director of emergency management.
Firefighters raced to 111 Devonshire St. in the downtown area to investigate reports that the building had started to lean after the tremor. But Deputy Fire Chief Richard DiBenedetto said that, according to the building manager and city inspectors, the building always looked that way.
“We have no reports of damage in the city,’’ fire department spokesman Steve MacDonald said at 2:30 p.m. “We have found that people felt it and evacuated buildings on their own.” Boston police said they received a rash of calls but no reports of damage or injury.
David Procopio, spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police, said the tremor was felt at the agency headquarters in Framingham. He said more than 40 phone calls were received by dispatchers shortly afterwards.
“No one was reporting any significant damage,’’ Procopio said. “They were just asking what’s going on and if there is there is anything they should do.’’
Hundreds of people walked out of US District Court in South Boston after having been ordered to evacuate.
Law clerks working on the eighth floor of the modern waterfront courthouse said they were stunned and confused by the quake.
Cassandra Barnum, 26, said she thought to herself that “Oh, my God, someone bombed the building.’’ Once she realized the building was not being attacked, Barnum said she was still unnerved. “I was nervous,’’ she said. “The building was swaying and everything was off balance.’’
At UMass-Boston, summer classes were cut short and all workers were sent home early after the tremors rattled nerves on the Dorchester campus.
“Many people left the buildings spontaneously,’’ said DeWayne Lehman, UMass Boston spokesman.
He said people gathered on the school’s soccer fields while UMass Boston public safety officials made sure the buildings had been safely evacuated.
Lehman said the campus buildings, most of which were completed in 1974 and are built on reclaimed land, are being inspected by facility managers as a precaution.
He said the school expects to reopen Wednesday.
Staff were evacuated at Bay State College in the Back Bay briefly while the Commonwealth Avenue building was checked. A medical building on Beacon Street in Brookline was evacuated while it was being inspected. A Boston Ballet building in the South End was also evacuated.
A spokeswoman for Boston Properties, owner of the Hancock and Prudential towers, said residents felt the quake in the buildings, but no one was evacuated and there were no immediate signs of damage.
Donna Cutillo, assistant to the chief executive of Partners Health Care, who works on the 11th floor of the Prudential Center, said the building was “swaying so much that everyone came out of their office or out of their meeting – everyone felt it at the same time.”
She said it lasted no more than 10 seconds “but you could definitely feel it.”
“I wasn’t afraid. I just didn’t know what was going on at first,” she said.
“Considering that we’re one of the tallest buildings in the city, I’m surprised” no one was evacuated, she said.
At the State House, the quake shook House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, who was seated with two aides at a table in his ornate third-floor office.
“I’m sitting there and I said, ‘Is there something wrong with me? I feel like I’m shaking, or the ground is shaking,’” DeLeo recalled about an hour later.
“I said, ‘Did you guys feel that?’” But DeLeo said he was the only one in the room to feel the tremor, so he dispatched one of his aides to find out if a construction project outside his office was to blame for the tremor.
“This goes to the crux of leadership,” he chuckled. “I’m proud to say that, in this office, I’m a little more perceptive.”
The quake could be felt at the Globe offices in Dorchester and at Boston City Hall. At the Verizon building in the Financial District, spokesman Phil Santoro said, everyone felt the quake. “It felt like you were stepping onto a boat,” said Santoro.
The quake was also felt by reporters traveling with President Obama, who had just started golfing at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs. They were inquiring whether Obama felt it himself.
Massachusetts is located in a “moderate” earthquake zone. Although they cause only mild to insignificant damage, we experience several small tremors every year. Scientists cite the Cape Ann Earthquake of 1755 (with a magnitude of 6.0) as the last major earthquake to cause significant damage in Massachusetts.
The quake prompted immediate reaction in Washington, where office buildings emptied out and the Pentagon and Capitol were evacuated. Reagan National Airport also was briefly shut down, one CNN producer reported via Twitter.
The FAA grounded flights, or reported major delays, at airports in Washington, DC., Philadelphia, Newark, and New York.
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