Event facts
Estimated shaking · MMI VII
Very strong. Difficult to stand. Damage negligible in well-built structures, considerable in poorly-built ones.
MMI is the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale — what people actually feel. This estimate is derived from magnitude alone; real shaking varies with depth, distance and local soil. The official USGS ShakeMap is the authoritative source.
What an M4.6 feels like
Light earthquake. Felt indoors by many, outdoors by a few. Hanging objects swing, dishes rattle, parked cars rock noticeably.
No structural damage expected. May knock light items off shelves at the epicenter.
What a intermediate depth means
Intermediate-depth events (70–300 km) attenuate more before reaching the surface, so a given magnitude is typically felt over a wider but weaker area than a shallow quake of the same size.
Energy released
This earthquake released roughly 4.52e+11 joules of seismic energy — about 7.17 thousandths of a Hiroshima bomb.
Caveat: bomb energy is concentrated at a single point in microseconds; seismic energy radiates outward through Earth's crust over many seconds. The comparison is for relative scale only.