Jul. 2--When explosive sounds filled the air and the ground began to rumble along the Delaware River towns in Salem County yesterday, residents could only pray it was an earthquake.

"I thought it was a bomb," said Pennsville resident Hubert J. Smigelski Sr. "I thought something horrible happened at DuPont."

The DuPont Co. Chambers Works polymers plant, in Pennsville and Carneys Point, is one of a handful of chemical facilities along the river in Salem County -- also home to a PSEG nuclear plant.

Luckily, the bomb-like sound was a 2.8 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale that hit the area around 9:46 a.m. -- not large enough to cause damage, but enough to get the phones ringing at local police stations.

"It seemed like we got about 1,000 calls in 10 minutes," said Pennsville Police Lt. Allen J. Cummings. "It sounded like an explosion. We got a little bit of a shake. Immediately, in this town, we call DuPont."

After initial reports that the quake -- a rarity in New Jersey -- was centered in Delaware, the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado placed the location in the Beaver Dam section of Pennsville, near the border with Mannington Township.

The epicenter, according to Google maps, was near a creek, just down the road from Smigelski's home on Smigelski Lane.

"I call that place the Salem swamp," Smigelski said.

Robin Weinstein, Salem County's deputy administrator, said that no damage was reported at any chemical facility or at the nuclear plant, but that county workers would be inspecting bridges as a precaution.

According to the USGS, about 1.3 million earthquakes ranging from 2 to 2.9 on the Richter scale happen in the world every year. USGS geophysicist John Bellini said that New Jersey has had about a half-dozen earthquakes since 1973.

To view earthquake information by state, visit http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

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