Earthquake shakes western NC after 2 others rattle Georgia border, geologists report
A 2.4-magnitude earthquake shook north of Asheville in western North Carolina around 11 a.m. Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.
The quake was 1.6 miles deep and hit Spruce Pine near Pisgah National Forest at 11:07 a.m. — about seven hours after a 2.4-magnitude tremor rattled west of McCaysville, Georgia, a city on the North Carolina border, McClatchy News reported.
They were the second and third earthquakes to hit the region in the last 24 hours.
The first, a 2.3-magnitude quake, was reported around 7 p.m. Wednesday near the Georgia-North Carolina border in Indian Springs, according to McClatchy.
No one reported feeling Wednesday’s earthquake in Spruce Pine, a town of 2,000 people close to Linville Falls, right off U.S. Route 19.
Magnitude measures the energy released at the source of the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey says. It replaces the old Richter scale.
Quakes between 2.5 and 5.4 magnitude are often felt but rarely cause much damage, according to Michigan Tech. Though likely to register on a seismograph, anything less than 2.5 is seldom felt.
