New York hit by 4.8 magnitude earthquake amid Tartan Week celebrations

An earthquake shook the densely populated New York metropolitan area as the city celebrated its Scottish-American heritage.

The quake hit on Friday morning, the US Geological Survey said, with residents reporting they felt rumbling across the north east of the country.

The agency reported a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.7, centred near Lebanon, New Jersey, or about 45 miles west of New York City and 50 miles north of Philadelphia.

The United Nations Security Council was holding a meeting on Gaza at its New York headquarters at the time.

The Fire Department of New York said there were no initial reports of damage.

It comes as actor Dougray Scott and Scotland’s external affairs secretary Angus Robertson and Scotland Office minister John Lamont MP are in the city for Tartan Week.

The Manhattan festival celebrates Scottish-American heritage, with more than 1,500 bagpipers, Highland dancers, clan members and Scottish-themed dogs due to take part in the Tartan Day parade on Saturday, which this year has Hollywood star Scott as its Grand Marshal.

In midtown Manhattan, the usual cacophony of traffic grew louder as motorists blared their horns on momentarily shuddering streets.

Some Brooklyn residents heard a booming sound and felt their building shaking.

In an apartment house in Manhattan’s East Village, a resident from more earthquake-prone California calmed nervous neighbours.

People in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Connecticut and other areas of the East Coast unaccustomed to earthquakes also reported feeling the ground shake.

New York governor Kathy Hochul posted on X that the quake was felt throughout the state.

“My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” Ms Hochul said.

The shaking stirred memories of the August 23 2011 earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada.

Registering magnitude 5.8, it was the strongest quake to hit the East Coast since the Second World War. The epicentre was in Virginia.

That earthquake left cracks in the Washington Monument, spurred the evacuation of the White House and Capitol and rattled New Yorkers three weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.