A dog's sudden reaction to a small earthquake in New Jersey that rattled parts of the Northeast on Friday mid-morning has gone viral on social media.
The earthquake was centered in Whitehouse Station, part of Readington Township, and registered as a magnitude 4.8. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) originally reported that the epicenter was in Lebanon. Shaking was felt throughout the region, including New York state, Connecticut and Pennsylvania and as far as Maine.
The sudden shaking from the earthquake not only shocked many people, but also apparently their pups, as it is an uncommon occurrence in the area.
Surveillance video from a New Jersey home showed a pit bull named Krampus sitting by a living room window when the earthquake hit. Krampus perked up at the sound of rumbling and then spun around in a circle and ran to assess the situation when the shaking got worse.
Another angle of the home caught on camera showed picture frames and doors rattling while things flew off a bookshelf.
The videos were posted on X, formerly Twitter, by user @OBrien64 with the caption: "NJ earthquake 2024, caught by my indoor Ring cams. We're 15 miles from the epicenter."
The post, which was uploaded at about 11:30 a.m. ET on Friday, had already received more than 665,000 views by mid-afternoon.
In a follow-up post, the dog owner wrote to Outcast Rescue, a non-profit that rescues pit bulls and rottweiler and helps them get adopted, saying: "Seems our boy Krampus, rescued by you and then he joined our home, has gone viral reacting to the earthquake this morning."
According to local officials, Hunterdon County at the epicenter of the earthquake suffered some structural damage to private property, but there have been no reports of injuries.
"I think all of us collectively were jarred by what we experienced," Brayden Fahey, the county's Office of Emergency Management coordinator, said at a news conference on Friday. "All of us probably feel very fortunate that there's not more damage and more issues facing us."
After the initial shock of the earthquake, people started to poke fun at the strange occurrence.
The X account of the Empire State Building in New York City posted: "I AM FINE."
When New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on X that "A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit west of Manhattan and has been felt throughout New York," law professor Anthony Michael Kreis joked, "New Jersey has a name, Kathy."
The Daily Show, a political satire TV program, jokingly wrote on X: "CNN: Earthquake Hits Tri-State Area. MSNBC: Earthquake in NYC. FOX NEWS: The earth can't even stay still anymore, because of woke."
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