A 5.5-magnitude earthquake has hit Ontario, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tremors were reportedly felt as far away as Montreal, Boston and Cleveland.
The first tremor hit at 1:40 p.m. ET Wednesday.
Buildings in Toronto and Ottawa were evacuated in the minutes following the tremors.
"Earthquakes across eastern Canada are definitely rare but we do have them," said Johanna Wagstaffe, a CBC seismologist and meteorologist. "There are small fault lines along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. There is a relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley. It's about 1,000 kilometres long." The last major earthquake we saw on that fault line was a 5.4 magnitude earthquake in 1998, she said.
Kathleen Sullivan was working on the eighth floor of an office in downtown Toronto when the quake hit.
"It was very peculiar because we could actually see the plants on our window shelf shaking. By the time we gathered in the hall and figured out it wasn't our imagination, it stopped. But it was easily a minute of things shaking."
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