Typically an earthquake or two a year is felt in the mountains of North Carolina, but there have been 6 earthquakes in the last few months.
An earthquake shook a county in the North Carolina mountains sector on Sunday morning, December 5, according to geological authorities.
The quake, a magnitude 2.3 on the old Richter scale, struck just before 8:00 a.m. in Laurel Park in Henderson County, about 26 miles south of Asheville, according to the National Geological Survey (USGS).
Although it occurred very close to the surface (0.1 km), the tremor was not strong enough to be felt in low-lying areas. Three people reported the incident to the USGS website.
Moderately damaging tremors strike the North Carolina mountains every few decades, and small quakes are typically felt once a year or two . However, there have been six tremors in the past year in Henderson County, according to Earthquake Track .
The largest was a magnitude 2.5 earthquake in Marshall on September 25.
Since then, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck southern Sparta, near the Virginia border, last August. Which caused extensive damage and was felt 100 miles away in Charlotte.
History of earthquakes in the mountains
Since at least 1776, people living in North and South Carolina, and in adjacent parts of Georgia and Tennessee, have felt small earthquakes and suffered damage from larger and infrequent ones.
The largest earthquake in the area (of magnitude 5.1) occurred in 1916.
Earthquakes in the center and east of the country, although less frequent than in the west, are generally felt over a much larger region.