Another quake rattles US town

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MINERAL, United States: Strolling around the centre of the tiny US town of Mineral, Chelsea Roach was a little shook up by what she saw: broken glass, damaged roofs, reporters from out of town swarming the streets, outnumbering locals, Xinhua news reports.

The central Virginian town of around 400 residents was the closest urban area near the epicentre of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake which hit earlier in the afternoon, the largest to hit the East Coast in 67 years. The tremors could be felt 800 km away, at Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, where President Barack Obama was vacationing and playing golf.

Roach’s house is one mile away from Mineral’s town centre, about 8 km north of the epicentre.

Roach said she was at home when the earthquake struck at around 1.51pm local time. Her two small children were playing in the playroom. Then, all of a sudden, “it started shaking”.

“I was screaming,” Roach said, but her husband, who was on the bed at the time, couldn’t reach her because it was shaking violently.

“We couldn’t get out of the house, and the house shifted and we couldn’t get the door unlocked,” said Roach. “It was awful”.