T
he Pentagon evacuated Tuesday after a 5.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the East Coast, sending people pouring into the streets wondering what was going on. Those inside the Pentagon said they could see the walls shaking and feel the entire building moving beneath them. The earthquake, which struck just before 2 p.m., was located 88 miles southwest of Washington and 36 miles northwest of Richmond, Va., in an area that is not normally seismically active, according to the US Geological Survey. “It’s one of the largest that we’ve had there,” USGS seismologist Lucy Jones told CNN. (At first, the USGS labeled the quake a 5.8 magnitude, then 5.9, and then back to 5.8.) By 3 p.m. most employees were back at their desks inside the Pentagon, an Air Force spokesman told the Daily Report, and there was little damage reported. However, a water main did break on the fourth floor. Officials at Langley AFB, Va., said they felt the tremors but no damages were reported. (CNN report)
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.