EARTHQUAKE

Residents of Mineral, Va., where an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter originated Tuesday, reported extensive damage to key buildings and the shutdown of a nearby nuclear power station.

Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Station in Mineral, Virginia were stopped working, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The plant lost off-site power, but diesel generators are operating, a spokesman for the commission said.

The earthquake in Virginia that shook the east coast and the approaching Hurricane Irene storm remind us that mother nature is the most poweful force of all.

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia rattled Washington DC and sent tremors all the way north to New York City and Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. The earthquake struck around 1:51 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern seaboard of the U.S. just before 2 p.m. (EDT). It was centered in a small town near Richmond, Va., and tremors were felt as far north as Rhode Island and Toronto, Canada.

The earthquake that struck central Virginia on Tuesday afternoon interrupted musicians working in a studio in Richmond, Va., some 40 miles southeast of the quake's epicenter.

People turned to social networking for comfort.

Here's where the 2011 Virginia Earthquake hit according to maps distributed by the U.S. Geographical Survey.

The USGS has said there is no correlation between the earthquake that rocked the East Coast from Raleigh to New York and the one that hit Colorado.

The Washington National Cathedral is a masonry structure that employed medieval building methods instead of using a modern steel infrastructure.

After an earthquake shook the East Coast of the U.S. on Tuesday afternoon, two nuclear reactors in Virginia have been taken offline.

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake emanating from Virginia caused more anxiety than physical damage in New York City, where employees at City Hall returned to work after a brief evacuation.

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake emanating from Virginia caused more anxiety than physical damage in New York City, where employees at City Hall returned to work after a brief evacuation.

Part of a building in southeast DC collapsed.

You felt it from the floor through the chair, and all the windows started rattling, Steve Lang, a retired AT&T manager who lives in Danville, Va., about 150 miles from the epicenter, told IBTimes.

An earthquake sent tremors from Washington to New York City Tuesday afternoon, and U.S. geological officials and other authorities said it was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake based in Virginia. As of 3 p.m. EDT, there were no reports of any casualties.

After a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit central Virgina, sending tremors up the East coast from Washington D.C., to New York City and even Toronto, the USGS warned that the quake may be a foreshock with more to come.

The following are a list of precautions from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Virginia that shook the U.S East Coast, caused commotion on the streets of New York City, packing roads to the Lincoln Tunnel, flooding Penn Station with people and shutting down major tunnels.

Social media was buzzing following Tuesday afternoon's east coast quake.

The Virginia earthquake Aug. 23 was unusual for the region, although not unprecedented. Earthquakes, though fairly commonplace along the Pacific Coast, are few and far between on the Atlantic Coast because of its different geological structure.