Earthquake shakes Whidbey Island, felt in Edmonds

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An approximate 3.5 magnitude earthquake struck just off Whidbey Island around 11 a.m. Thursday morning, rattling some people in Edmonds who said they felt the tremor.

“Here in downtown Edmonds, across from Edmonds Center for the Arts it felt (and sounded) like a very loud sonic boom,” said Emily Hill. “The whole building, interior walls and roof experienced something like an implosion ‘boom.’

“In other earthquake scenarios that I’ve experienced there’s a ripple, and sway,” Hill added. “This was like the building had been lifted straight up and dropped straight back down, no sway.”

Edmonds police spokesman Sgt. Shane Hawley said that a couple of employees mentioned they felt the quake at the downtown Edmonds police station this morning. However, there were no phone calls to the department about it, Hawley said.

The location of Thursday morning’s quake, according to the United States Geological Survey website.

According to our online news partner The Seattle Times, the latest earthquake occurred at 10:56 a.m. It followed two earlier earthquakes early Thursday, part of a swarm of minor quakes that have struck the Kitsap Peninsula. They struck near the Seattle fault, a zone of thrust faults that run through Seattle and across the Puget Sound.

The first quake hit at 12:34 a.m. Thursday, with a magnitude of 3.6 and an epicenter 3.4 miles from Bremerton, according to the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN). The second, smaller temblor came at 2:36 a.m., with a magnitude of 2.6 and an epicenter 2.1 miles from Bremerton, The Times said. They were the latest in a series of 13 that have occurred around the Kitsap Peninsula since May 3. None had a magnitude greater than 3.6.

Earthquakes registering between 2.0 and 3.9 on the Richter scale are considered minor. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

 

 

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