June 3, 2007 – Sunday sleepers got a rude awakening when an earthquake that registered 4.0 on the Richter Scale shook the territory at 8:28 a.m.
The earthquake was centered at 18.14 degrees north longitude and 64.85 degrees west latitude–about 18 miles south southeast of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.
It happened 4.3 miles under the sea floor on what seismologists call the Virgin Islands Platform.
While St. Thomas and St. John residents reported feeling the earthquake, at least one person on St. Croix said he didn't feel it. "But I have an air mattress," Steve Toscano said, inferring that the mattress cushioned the shock.
St. Thomas resident Gary Metz was in the shower when the earthquake struck.
"It went on long enough to say, 'OK, is this going to lead to something,'" he said, adding that he lives below Volkswagen-sized rocks that he hopes won't head down the hill to his house.
"It always gives me a pause," he said.
Sunday's earthquake was the strongest of the six recorded so far in June at the Puerto Rico Seismic Network.
So far this year, the Seismic Network recorded 958 earthquakes in the region.
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