Earthquake causes no damage on campus

This article was originally published August 23, 2011 at 11:38 p.m.

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Virginia rattled nerves but caused no damage or injuries on Penn’s campus.

The earthquake occurred at 1:51 p.m. near the town of Mineral, Virginia — more than 200 miles southwest of Philadelphia — and sent tremors along the Eastern Seaboard.

The Division of Public Safety issued a UPennAlert at about 2:20 p.m. notifying Penn community members that campus buildings were being checked for damage and reminding them to “stay calm.” The alert was sent “in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake to keep our community informed,” DPS spokeswoman Stef Karp wrote in an email.

About three hours later, a message on DPS’s website stated that “operations are back to normal.”

A campus-wide inspection conducted by DPS and Facilities and Real Estate Services found no damage, FRES spokeswoman Jennifer Rizzi wrote in an email.

The earthquake did, however, startle some people who were working on campus.

Tina Cairns, a staff scientist who was in a laboratory in the Levy Building of the School of Dental Medicine during the earthquake, estimated that the building shook for 10 to 20 seconds.

“I was … working on a machine that costs more than my house,” she said. After recovering from a slight shock, she and her coworkers stayed in the building and continued to work. The machine was undamaged.

Although there were reports of individuals evacuating from campus buildings, Rizzi wrote that no official evacuations occurred.

Across Philadelphia, only minor building damage was reported, Mayor Michael Nutter said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. There were no reports of damage to infrastructure.

Some buildings, including City Hall, were evacuated, inspected and then reopened.

SEPTA experienced minor delays, Amtrak had delays up to an hour and Philadelphia International Airport was temporarily closed.

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