Tennessee Earthquake, Strongest in Decades, Jolts Homes in the Region and Atlanta

The earth shook around 4:14 a.m. local time just outside Decatur, Tennessee, a city of about 1,600 people near the Great Smoky Mountains, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake was shallow, about 5 1/2 miles below the surface, sending ripples throughout the area and into neighboring states.

It was the strongest earthquake in East Tennessee since a 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck near Maryville, Tennessee, in 1973, the National Weather Service said.

A second earthquake in the same area Wednesday, a 3.3-magnitude jolt, struck about 15 minutes after the first one, the USGS said. The earthquakes were not on a known fault, the agency said, but they did occur in one of the most active earthquake zones in the Southeast. That area, known as the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone, extends to the northern parts of Alabama and Georgia.

People in a 310-mile area, from southern Kentucky to southwest Georgia, felt the larger earthquake, the USGS said. In Atlanta, the largest metro area in the region, people said they woke up and found their houses shaking. There were no reports of injuries or serious damage.

Karen Webb, a dispatcher at the Meigs County Sheriff’s Department in Decatur, said a few residents called to report that small items had shifted in their houses during the earthquake.

“A picture turned over,” Webb said. “Maybe a lamp.”

In Cobb County, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, the police received at least seven 911 calls from people who mistook the ground shaking for someone trying to break into their home, said Ross Cavitt, a county spokesman.

“Police attributed those calls to the earthquake because they came in at that time and there was no other evidence of an intruder,” Cavitt said in an email.

The earthquake struck about 2 miles east of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, one of the largest nuclear power stations in the United States. But the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, said engineers had not found damage at Watts Bar or other facilities in the area.

“TVA facilities are designed to withstand seismic events,” the Tennessee Valley Authority said on Twitter.

Mary Colbaugh, who works at the Decatur Family Diner in Decatur, said she felt the ground shake as she was driving to work Wednesday. But it was not any reason for alarm, she said.

“We heard the roar and a little shake,” Colbaugh said in an interview. “It’s a tremble.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.