Rare Earthquake Shakes New England

A rare, but not especially powerful, earthquake rattled New Englanders from Maine to Rhode Island Monday morning. The United States Geological Survey said the 3.8-magnitude quake was centered around 6 miles off the coast of Maine, southeast of York Harbor and near the state's border with New Hampshire, the Boston Globe reports. People felt homes and other buildings shaking as far south as Boston, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. "This is like a once-in-every-five-years kind of earthquake," John Ebel, a senior scientist with the Weston Observatory at Boston College, tells WBZ.

Officials said the earthquake was felt across New England and as far away as Pennsylvania, the AP reports. In York County, Maine, emergency dispatchers received numerous calls about what people thought might have been an explosion. An elementary school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was briefly evacuated, reports Seacoastonline. "The reality is, as New Englanders, many of whom have lived here our whole lives, this might be everybody's first earthquake experience," said superintendent of schools Zach McLaughlin. "I think folks did the right thing, but once it was clear that we were in good condition, folks returned to the building." (More earthquake stories.)