Earthquake Hits Off Massachusetts Coast, Felt Widely Throughout New England

By Wynne Davis

Published November 8, 2020 at 1:58 PM CST

A rare earthquake occurred off the coast of Massachusetts on Sunday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but no serious injuries or damage haas been reported.

The magnitude 3.6 earthquake hit around 9:10 a.m. local time, a few miles off the coast of New Bedford, Mass., in Buzzards Bay.

Recent update from @USGS: magnitude 3.6 #earthquake ~11 km SSW of Bliss Corner, Dartmouth, MA

https://t.co/sBtj5GCKEc https://t.co/ldqsbVg1lQ
— MEMA (@MassEMA) November 8, 2020

Residents across parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island reported feeling the quake.

Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the Geological Survey, told The New York Times that the agency does not expect significant damage from the earthquake.

"Earthquakes in this area are commonly felt very far away because the rocks in this area are very contiguous, very old, so they transmit the energy very well from earthquakes," Caruso said.

Corrected: November 10, 2020 at 11:00 PM CST

A previous version of this story mistakenly noted that geophysicist Paul Caruso told the New York Times that the USGS expected damage from an earthquake that struck off the coast of Massachusetts. In actuality, Caruso told the Times the USGS did not expect significant damage.