‘This was a sharp loud boom.’ Second earthquake hits near Columbia in past two months
For the second time since November, an earthquake was reported near Columbia, according to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division.
The U.S. Geological Survey said a 2.5 magnitude earthquake occurred near Cayce, according to an Emergency Management Division tweet.
The quake happened just after noon on Saturday about a half mile southeast of Cayce, according to the USGS. It had a depth of 1.72 kilometers, the group reported.
Light shaking caused by the earthquake was reported by the USGS. No damage or injuries have been reported.
Most people likely did not feel the earthquake, as the ones that register 2.5 magnitude or less often go unnoticed and are only recorded by a seismograph, according to Michigan Technological University. Any quake less than 5.5 magnitude is not likely to cause significant damage, the school said.
But some people said they felt something over the weekend, without knowing for sure what occurred.
“I was dead asleep at my house in Cayce and whatever that boom was, woke me up from a dead sleep,” Chris Jackson, a partner in Carolina Weather Group, told The State. “I am used to hearing the rumbles of the quarries, but this wasn’t a quarry blast. ... This was a sharp loud boom. Weird man.”
A resident of The Gates condominiums near Williams-Brice Stadium in downtown Columbia also reported feeling the quake.
“I felt the condo shaking for what seemed like five seconds or so and it was obvious my dogs felt it too,” Kathryn Gaddy told The State. “We have a lot of construction going on around here so at first I thought it was heavy drilling or something, but then realized there is no construction happening today, obviously. I live on the second floor and it was clear something was moving under and around me.”
A similar earthquake was reported in the same area on Nov. 6.
On that occasion, a 2.0 magnitude earthquake was reported in Cayce by the USGS. It occurred at 3:45 a.m. and had a depth of 0.8 kilometers.
Prior to the November quake, a 2.2 magnitude earthquake in Irmo on July 17 was the most recent earthquake recorded in the Midlands in 2019, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. That one also occurred around 3 a.m.
Additional earthquakes in the Columbia area were reported in Winnsboro Mills on July 10 (1.4 magnitude), and Chapin on Jan. 24 (2.5 magnitude), per DNR.
Technically, there have been more earthquakes in the Midlands in the past month than in the city of San Francisco, which known for powerful seismic events, Southern California Earthquake Data Center information shows.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 11:32 AM.
