Quake Shakes New Yorkers Anew

Work At Ground Zero Continues Uniterrupted

(AP)  A minor earthquake shook the New York City area early Saturday, rattling the nerves of some residents still jumpy in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A magnitude-2.6 earthquake hit under Manhattan around 1:42 a.m., said Dr. John Ebel, director of the Weston Observatory at Boston College, which monitors seismic activity in the Northeast.

"That's more than a tremor. That's a small earthquake," Ebel said.

At first, police scrambled to determine the source as 911 calls flooded in reporting shaking buildings and a booming sound, said Detective Edward Reuss, a spokesman for the New York Police Department.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, Reuss said. Recovery work continued uninterrupted at the site of the World Trade Center collapse.

Carolyn Bell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey, said the quake was felt into Long Island and New Jersey.

New Yorker Josephine Toscamo said she was woken by a loud boom. "I'm a little shaken up so I'm going to spend the night at my friend's," she said.

The last significant natural seismic event to strike the city was a magnitude-2.4 earthquake on Jan. 17.