Earthquake!

So there was a 5.9 earthquake outside Richmond, VA yesterday and we felt the tremors all the way up here in Ontario, Canada.

I didn’t personally feel it, but Facebook was instantly saturated with people talking about it. Reactions varied from

OMFG AN EARTHQUAKE

to

Did anyone else feel that?

to

Oh no, I hope noone was hurt :(

to my personal favourite

Sweet, an earthquake!

Once again, as with the Japan quake and Tsunami that occurred in March of this year, the tweets travelled faster than the shockwaves:

Tweets began pouring in from D.C. nearly thirty seconds before we felt the quake at our headquarters in New York City or, for that matter, before any reports about the quake emerged from the media.

Twitter also reported that their capacity rose to nearly 5,500 Tweets Per Second (TPS):

I think it’s pretty crazy that tweets travel faster than seismic waves, but I guess that’s just the age we live in.

I remember the same thing happened during the last earthquake in this region (which wasn’t that long ago). The Wikipedia page for it was created within seconds and I remember hitting refresh over and over just to see it morphing and changing in real time. It was pretty radical.

Rad-ness aside, I’m glad noone was killed or seriously maimed in any way by this earthquake.