A 6.1-magnitude earthquake rattled the island of Cuba on Monday afternoon, shaking buildings in the capital city of Havana — with tremors felt as far away as central Florida.
Aftershocks were expected, scientists said.
“Dude! I felt this #Earthquake in Hollywood, #Florida!” a shocked X user wrote.
“I was sitting on my couch and felt the whole couch move, looked at my coffee table and it was swaying, then checked my water and it was moving! That was like a solid 60+ mins of shaking. WOW!”
The epicenter of the quake was just west of Cuba, with the US Geological Survey initially rating it at 6.4 magnitude before downgrading it, Spectrum Bay News 9 reported.
No injuries were immediately reported from the temblor, which struck off Cuba’s western coast.
“Everyone here is OK,” Flavia Pupo, a hotel manager at the Pinar del Rio hotel, told The Associated Press.
“The people on the street are a little bit scared.”
The earthquake led to reports of tremors from Hollywood, Fla., to Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville there, too.
“You can barely see it, but I felt it,” a Palm Beach resident said in online video showing an orchid plant shaking.
Mexico also was rocked.
“Lots of shaking for a good minute,” someone posted on X from Playa del Carmen. “Worse than the 2 earthquakes I’ve experienced in LA. Pretty scary before it ended.”
The USGS told Spectrum that the region should expect aftershocks.
“We are still getting felt reports and would expect aftershocks from a quake of this size,’’ a rep said.
Cuba’s Oriente fault off the country’s southeast coast has shaken the island in the past, including with a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in 2020 that also caused damage on the nearby Cayman Islands.
