A magnitude 6.1 earthquake that struck off the coast of Cuba was felt hundreds of miles away across Florida, sending tremors through buildings and prompting an evacuation in downtown Miami. The shaking was reported as far north as Florida's panhandle and down to the Keys, and was even noticed across the water in Mexico.
The epicenter lay off the western coast of Cuba, more than 370 miles from South Florida, yet the quake still rattled high-rise buildings far up the peninsula. For a region that rarely feels earthquakes at all, the sudden, unexplained movement was disorienting, and for some residents it was genuinely frightening.
Closest to the epicenter, a passenger aboard a cruise ship described the moment the sea floor shifted beneath them. The ship began to shake and objects fell from the shelves, the passenger said, as people grabbed hold of whatever they could. The shaking lasted about twenty seconds, and for a moment those on board feared the vessel had run aground.
In Miami, the tremors were strong enough that people inside the Stephen P. Clark Government Center had to evacuate the building during the afternoon. Across the city, residents flooded social media, comparing notes on TikTok and Instagram and asking one another whether they too had felt the ground move beneath them.
Among those caught off guard was Maria Torado, who was in class at her school in Kendall when she felt the building shift. A shaking movement was quickly followed by an alarm telling everyone to leave, she said. Video posted online showed students and staff gathered outside after the evacuation, unsure at first what had happened.
Elsewhere the signs were subtler but unmistakable. Footage from Miami showed a chandelier swaying steadily from side to side, while a clip from Tampa captured a houseplant trembling. Another video recorded a man in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, remarking that everything around him had suddenly begun to shake.
Cuban state media reported no damage or injuries from the quake, and the same held true in Florida, where officials said the event was not of sufficient magnitude, nor shallow enough in depth, to cause harm so far from the epicenter. In Miami, the Metrorail and Metromover were briefly suspended during the evacuations before service returned to normal.