A 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck near New York City on Friday morning, the US Geological Survey said, shaking buildings up and down the East Coast and surprising residents in an area that rarely experiences notable seismic activity.

The quake's epicentre was in Tewksbury in central New Jersey, about 64 kilometers west of New York City. It occurred just after 10.20 am local time at a depth of 4.7 kilometres , the USGS said. At 5.59 pm there was a small but noticeable aftershock, which had a magnitude of 4.0, according to the USGS.

No major damage was reported, but engineering teams were inspecting roads and bridges.

"This is one of the largest earthquakes on the East Coast in the last century," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at a news conference.

Social media users reported feeling the earthquake from Philadelphia up to New York and eastward along Long Island.

Several users posted images of knocked over garden furniture captioned, "we will rebuild."

"I AM FINE," reported the Empire State Building on its X account.

"Earthquakes are uncommon but not unheard of along the Atlantic Coast, a zone one study called a 'passive-aggressive margin' because there's no active plate boundary between the Atlantic and North American plates," the USGS wrote on X.

Social media users jokingly questioned whether an earthquake coming days before the April 8 solar eclipse, which will be visible across swaths of the northeastern United States, heralded the end of the world.

At the United Nations in midtown Manhattan, the Save the Children CEO abruptly stopped addressing the Security Council on the Israel-Gaza conflict as cameras began shuddering.

"You're making the ground shake," Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour quipped. (Reuters/AFP)