Two Earthquakes Strike NC Community Hours Apart, USGS Reports

Two earthquakes struck the Lake Toxaway area of Transylvania County, N.C., just over two hours apart on Saturday, Aug. 9, with the first hitting just before 7 a.m. and the second arriving around 9:15 a.m.

Both quakes were centered in the Lake Toxaway area of Transylvania County, and USGS data pinpointed their epicenters with unusual precision. The quakes ranged from 1.8 to 2.1 magnitude and were centered west of town at depths of as much as 2.8 miles below the surface. Specifically, the epicenters were off Blue Ridge Road near Lake Toxaway.

Despite their small size, the quakes were detectable well beyond Transylvania County. Four people reported feeling shaking during the 1.8 quake on Saturday, and one person reported feeling the 2.1 quake, according to the USGS. WBTV reported the tremors were felt as far as Landrum, South Carolina, roughly 90 minutes from the epicenter, with nothing more than weak shaking reported from either event.

The Aug. 9 pair did not arrive in isolation. A tiny mountain town in North Carolina had seen three earthquakes over four days, part of a broader trend in 2025, with two quakes on Saturday, Aug. 9, and a third arriving Tuesday, Aug. 12. Five days before the Saturday pair, another low-magnitude quake had already rattled the same Lake Toxaway area on Aug. 4.

That Saturday morning also brought seismic activity farther down the Carolina coast. A separate 1.9-magnitude quake struck the Myrtle Beach area near the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge, several hundred miles to the south and east, though WBTV reported that event as unrelated to the Transylvania County activity.

The Lake Toxaway area of Transylvania County has become a seismic hot spot for the state, recording 14 earthquakes ranging from magnitude 1.3 to 2.4 between May 30 and Oct. 18 of 2025. Earthquakes are not common in the region, with only a dozen reported in the past 25 years, all minor. Eight of those 12 occurred in 2025 alone.

Explaining the uptick is a challenge, given the region sits in the middle of the North American tectonic plate rather than along a volatile fault zone line, according to the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis.

According to the USGS, magnitude 2 earthquakes are typically felt by only a few people, and none of the three Carolina quakes that Saturday were expected to cause structural damage. Transylvania County officials have not reported any damage calls or emergency responses connected to the Aug. 9 events.