Kyle Guest was asleep in his house in Charlottesville, Va., when a magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck at about 2 p.m. Tuesday.
“I woke really easily — right away when I felt a shaking,” said Guest, a senior economics and environmental thought and practice double major at the University of Virginia.
“My whole room started shaking pretty violently for about 10 seconds. I didn’t know what was going on. It felt like a spaceship
was landing in my house.”
Although most students at UNC barely felt the earthquake, at the University of Virginia, several buildings were evacuated after students and faculty felt the ground trembling.
Tremors stemming from the earthquake could be felt throughout the Eastern United States, including the Carolinas.
While the shakes went unnoticed by many at the University, Randy Young, Department of Public Safety spokesman, said he did receive a couple of concerned 911 calls.
No injuries were reported as a result of the earthquake, but it damaged three of the four spires on the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., according to McClatchy reports.
Cory Morton, a student at George Mason University, said he saw the damages done to the 20th century landmark while on his way home from work.
“I was biking by the National Cathedral and did get to see the spires that were collapsing,” he said.