WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 23 (DPI) — A rare East Coast earthquake triggered an avalanche of reader comments across the internet today, most of them “I felt it here…” and other reflexive expressions of astonishment.
Comments on NYTimes.com (840 comments by 5:30pm EST), WSJ.com (250), WashingtonPost.com (162) were mostly the same, brief “where-was-I” remarks, one-line affirmations of having survived a 5.8-scale temblor that inflicted no known injuries and almost no physical damage beyond the epicenter near Mineral, Va., about 85 miles southwest of Washington.
And any sense of anxiety or survival in reader comments was met with hoots from respondents on the earthquake-prone West Coast. As one comment on WSJ.com replied to another: “A shaker like that today in Southern California is called Tuesday.”
Reddit.com posted a few visual one-liners as well:
To those West Coasters who are making fun of our reaction to earthquake:
http://i.imgur.com/veVoz.jpg
Devastation in downtown DC:
http://i.imgur.com/jMySO.jpg