People look up at a window that cracked during the East Coast
earthquake in Philadelphia on Aug. 23, 2011. / Alex Brandon, AP
This week began with plans for a nationwide earthquake drill.
But residents in Maine got a taste of the real thing. Bob
Marvinney, Maine's state geologist, said he was sitting on his
couch at home at 7:12 p.m. Tuesday, when the magnitude-4.0 quake
hit. The shaking started 4 miles beneath the Earth, near Hollis
Center in southwestern Maine, and resulted in no reports of
damage or injuries, according to the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS). "I felt a rumbling start, it started pretty gradual, and
then it got to the strongest point" and lasted about a half-
minute, Marvinney said. "I knew right away it had to be an
earthquake." Though earthquakes on the East Coast have destroyed
buildings and caused fatalities, they are usually smaller and
far less frequent and therefore harder to predict than West
Coast quakes, experts say. They behave differently because the
Earth and rocks in the East are