The quake registered a magnitude of 6.1 when it struck at 6:40 a.m. local time from an epicenter about 50 miles (80 km) north of the Virgin Islands, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Puerto Rico Seismic Network.
“I was very scared, to wake up like that and have no idea what was going on,” one St. Thomas resident told a reporter form the SKNVibes Web site. “There were a lot of loud noises and my whole bed was shaking.”
There were no reports of any significant damage from Saturday’s shaking.
The quake happened to occur on the 90th anniversary of the worst temblor ever recorded in Puerto Rico — a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that killed 118 people in the western half of the U.S. Caribbean commonwealth.