Towns within 20 miles from East Kingston experienced a 2.7 magnitude earthquake at 9:28 a.m. on Thursday, according to the US Geological Society (USGS).

An earthquake that lies in the 1.0-3.0 scale will “not be felt except by a very few under especially favorable conditions. The earthquake was centered in East Kingston and caused much controversy at Triton High School as to what had happened. Some students heard it, some felt it, and many experienced nothing at all.

The East Kingston, N.H. Police Department, which is one mile from the center of the earthquake, received 28 calls within eight minutes about the event. East Kingston Police Administrative Assistant Cheri Chaisson, mother of junior Caitlyn Chaisson, said the calls were about concerns over the extremely loud bang that was heard and the very noticeable shaking of their homes.

Mark Ginsburg who works at Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant said he felt the quake but that no damage was done to the plant.

Rockingham county dispatch soon reported that the earthquake measured 2.6-3.0 magnitude.  There were also two small earthquakes reported earlier in the week in central New Hampshire

Nicole Morgan, mother of senior Maia Perry, works at Lindt Chocolates in Exeter, N.H., a few miles from the center of the quake. “We all thought the ceiling was falling down,” said Morgan. “It sounded like an 18-wheeler was going over my head. No one thought of it being an earthquake. There was no damage.”

Depending on where students and staff were in the building appeared to determine whether it was felt. Students from television production, in one of the school’s outbuildings, felt the quake, but those in the center of the building, such as in the music hallway, did not feel any shaking.

Students and teachers at Salisbury Elementary School felt the shaking, according to a high school student who was there. So did Mrs. Sharon Riordan, Triton’s drama teacher. Did the quake frighten her?

“ I grew up in southern California,” said Riordan. “It’s going to take more than that baby.”