The strongest earthquake to hit New Jersey in 240 years and New York in 1840 years sent shockwaves quite literally through the northeastern United States and resulted in over 180,000 reports of the tremor.
Indeed, the 4.8-magnitiude earth quake that hit the New York metropolitan area and rattled residents of six states – New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania – last Friday at 10:23 a.m. local time and which was followed by numerous aftershocks including a 3.8-magnitude quake just before 6 p.m. EDT and centered around Gladstone, New Jersey was enough to give anyone some degree of anxiety.
Buildings shook, walls rattled, china clattered, and dogs thought it was the end of the gravy bone ride they were on.
Sometimes the aftershocks aren’t just measurable on the Richter scale.
Many people are reporting sleep issues, anxiety, and other health issues since Friday’s events.
Post-earthquake dizziness syndrome, or PEDS, can be experienced by otherwise healthy individuals even after smaller quakes, although it was a major complaint following the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes in Japan.
The Japanese have a wonderfully evocative name for this condition, jishin-yoi, which translates to “earthquake drunk.”
Lest anyone be tempted to think it’s all in your head, well, they’d be right as it’s largely in your ears.
Simply put, PEDS occurs because earthquake-related effects significantly affect inner ear symptoms, autonomic function, and psychological factors.
Earthquake-induced disequilibrium may be further influenced by physical stressors, including sensory disruptions caused by the quake’s vibrations, autonomic stress, and changes in one’s living situation in more extreme instances.
Some people experience ghost aftershocks. A friend who lives in earthquake-prone Japan put it this way: “I feel a rumble, then a jolt. I look at the walls but see no movement, no metronome effect. I double check social-media just to be sure. Then I shrug my shoulders and return to what I was doing.”
Usually, these symptoms disappear quickly but experts say that they can sometimes linger, just like seasickness, and the remedy can be the same as well: an antihistamine or Dramamine, which is specifically formulated to address motion sickness.
Telephone companies reported a noticeable increase in calls on Friday both in the periods following the initial quake at 10:23 a.m. and the 6 p.m. aftershock. An aftershock is a lower-magnitude earthquake that follows the principal earthquake.
In 1783, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake occurred on November 22 at 3:50 a.m. It was the first-ever recorded earthquake in the Garden State and did not cause much damage beyond damaged chimneys and some broken china. President George Washington was across the Hudson for Evacuation Day festivities and asleep at Fraunces Tavern at the time of the quake and his sleep was reportedly not disturbed by the tremors.
The quake remains the strongest seismic event that the state has ever experienced.
Meanwhile, The most significant tremors in New York City occurred in 1884, when a magnitude 5.2 earthquake with an epicenter off Coney Island shook the city on August 10. That earthquake was about four times as strong last week’s, and its epicenter within present-day city borders, although it was in the city of Brooklyn at the time.
Damage was minimal although reports of fallen bricks and cracked plastic were made from eastern Pennsylvania to central Connecticut. The quake’s maximum intensity was felt at two sites on Long Island, Jamaica which is now in the borough of Queens, and Amityville, a village in what is now the town of Babylon in the western part of present-day Suffolk County.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
All Rights Reserved Travel