CBC News - Toronto - Earthquake rocks Ontario, Quebec AND London!

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

The first tremor hit at 1:41 p.m. ET Wednesday.

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

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"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" and a "relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley," she said just minutes after the quake.

The last major earthquake on that fault line measured 5.4 magnitude in 1998, she said.

Office workers shaken

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 se

'The bed just started to move side to side.'—Darren Bonnici, Windsor, Ont., resident

e 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."

The quake was felt as far south as Windsor, Ont., along the Canada-U.S. border.

"I was just laying in bed .... and the bed just started to move side to side ... just gently," said Darren Bonnici, who lives on the 10th floor of an apartment building along the city's riverfront.

"Sort of, almost like a mother would rock a baby in a crib," said Bonnici, adding the feeling lasted for about five seconds. "I thought right away it must have been an earthquake.

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Holy smokes! I was in my office on the 3rd floor meeting with Frans and felt the P wave then the S wave, the water in the cooler was shaking! He asked if that was an earthquake (they are doing heavy renovation on our building, I thought this was the reno) and I mentioned how I'd been in several in Alaska and it was similar. Didn't realize how similar!