3.6 Earthquake Shakes Region

WASHINGTON - A 3.6 magnitude earthquake shook the WTOP listening area just after 5 a.m.

The U.S. Geological Survey says it happened at exactly 5:04:49 a.m.

"It was centered in the Germantown-Gaithersburg area," Randy Baldwin, a physicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center tells WTOP.

"It was certainly widely felt throughout the area," Baldwin says.

"There's always a chance of getting aftershocks. As a general rule, the aftershocks are of a less magnitude."

D.C. emergency services says there are no reports of any damage or injuries. No problems with utilities are reported. No problems are reported with Metro.

Lucille Baur, public information officer for the Montgomery County Police Department, said the department received a lot of calls from people wondering what had happened.

Baur said her husband woke up when the quake struck.

"At first he thought it was a big truck going through," Baur said. "He felt the house shake and the windows rattle a little bit."

"It may have felt like a truck passing by, things were rattling on their shelves," says Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist with USGS.

Sigala tells Federal News Radio says the bedrock is different in the eastern U.S. She says when an earthquake shakes on the East Coast, you feel it for a greater distance than you do on the West Coast.

"When something shakes, it goes everywhere," she says.

GO HERE to read more.