Monday morning, an earthquake startled many people awake in Western New York. Apparently, a quake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was felt in the Buffalo area, according to Earthquakes Canada.
Viewers in Wilson and as far away as Hamburg have contacted 2 On Your Side to say they felt the quake. The United States Geological Survey stated at 6:15 AM that an earthquake of magnitude 3.8 had been felt, with its epicenter located roughly 2 kilometers northeast of West Seneca.
It was the largest earthquake in that area in at least 40 years, according to seismologist Yaareb Altaweel. Residents looked out their windows and went to their phones and the internet to try to figure out what had caused the brief but intense shaking.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz tweeted:
“It felt like a car hit my house in Buffalo. I jumped out of bed”
He said that emergency services personnel in the surrounding county reported that people as far as 20 miles north of Buffalo, near Niagara Falls, had felt the tremor.
Do you know that on Monday, a massive earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck the geographical center of Turkey and northwest Syria?
Buildings collapsed all over the snowy region as a result of the quake, killing hundreds and prompting a search for survivors…
Upstate New York is prone to minor earthquakes, though they are rarely as intense as those felt in California. The quake follows two extreme weather events, each of which set new records for the area: a snowfall in November that dumped as much as 7 feet of snow and a blizzard in December that is responsible for 47 fatalities.
The earthquake in western New York hit just hours after a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria claimed the lives of hundreds. A representative from USGS has stated that the two incidents are unrelated.
What you see below was recorded by a camera in Lancaster:
Little clip of the earthquake in #Buffalo pic.twitter.com/kyprxfNOyo
— HingleMcCringleberry (@CWaley) February 6, 2023
Michael Bruneau, PhD, an earthquake engineer at the University of Buffalo, addressed the media on Monday morning to explain that, since Western New York is not located on a major fault line, this earthquake is, in fact, an intraplate earthquake.
This type of earthquake, according to Bruneau, is not as well understood as earthquakes that occur near tectonic plate boundaries.
