Zeldzame aardbeving (5.5) treft Ottawa, Canada

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A 5.5-magnitude earthquake has hit Ontario, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tremors were reportedly felt as far away as Montreal, Boston and Cleveland.

The first tremor hit at 1:40 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Buildings in Toronto and Ottawa were evacuated in the minutes following the tremors.

"Earthquakes across eastern Canada are definitely rare but we do have them," said Johanna Wagstaffe, a CBC seismologist and meteorologist. "There are small fault lines along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. There is a relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley. It's about 1,000 kilometres long." The last major earthquake we saw on that fault line was a 5.4 magnitude earthquake in 1998, she said.

Kathleen Sullivan was working on the eighth floor of an office in downtown Toronto when the quake hit.

"It was very peculiar because we could actually see the plants on our window shelf shaking. By the time we gathered in the hall and figured out it wasn't our imagination, it stopped. But it was easily a minute of things shaking."

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Rare earthquake shakes Ottawa, Montreal
OTTAWA — A strong earthquake shook Ottawa and Montreal in eastern Canada on Wednesday, forcing office workers out onto downtown streets in the nation's capital.

The US Geological Survey reported the temblor of a magnitude of 5.5 hit the Ontario-Quebec border area at 1741 GMT, rattling downtown Ottawa shortly after midday.

The USGS said the epicenter was 61 kilometers (38 miles) north of Ottawa.

AFP journalists witnessed walls in downtown office buildings shook for several seconds. Cracks appeared in the Parliamentary Press Gallery building in Ottawa, and outside. Some people appeared shaken up, but unhurt.

Most downtown Ottawa buildings appeared to have been evacuated as alarms rang out.

James Bowden, a former resident of Alaska who experienced several earthquakes in the US state, was standing in line at a fast-food restaurant on Ottawa's Sparks Street when he said he "heard the earthquake coming a few seconds before it hit."

"It sounded like a freight train barreling towards us," he said.

An avid reader of earthquake sciences, Bowden said Ottawa experiences earthquakes every four or five years. "This one was fairly big," he said.

"It was really... freaky," a pedestrian was overheard saying on her cell phone as she walked b