5.8 quake rattles eastern US and Canada

A 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia on Aug. 23 rattled a large portion of the eastern U.S. and was felt in parts of eastern Canada.
According to AIR Worldwide, the quake was the largest earthquake to strike Virginia in more than a century. The epicentre was about 40 miles northwest of the state capital, Richmond and 83 miles southwest of Washington D.C.
“Ground shaking was felt up and down the East Coast, and as far north as Toronto and as far south as North Carolina,” an AIR release says. “According to AIR, the dense rock of the central and eastern US can propogate seismic energy more efficiently and therefore over a much larger area than in the plate boundry region of the western United States.”
At this level of ground motion, there should be minimal structural damage to buildings, reported AIR.
Nonstructural damage in the form of superficial crack in the concrete and stucco walls of engineered structures is possible. However, there could be more significant damage to the historical unreinforced masonry buildings in Virginia, which are characterized by their limited ability to resist earthquake lateral loads without cracking, it continued.