New month doesn’t stop rumbling in SC as earthquake hits the Columbia area

May was a busy month for earthquakes in South Carolina, and June is off to a fast start as a seismic event was recorded in the Columbia area early Wednesday morning.

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There were seven confirmed earthquakes in the Palmetto State in May, a figure that doesn’t include a May 28 sonic boom that shook up South Carolina, and its cause remains undetermined.

But the South Carolina Emergency Management Division said the rumbling tremors that hit near Winnsboro at 2:58 a.m. was definitely an earthquake. A 1.9 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Fairfield County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The seismic activity was recorded at about 6.5 miles beneath the surface of the ground, USGS data shows.

Recent earthquakes

The recent seismic activity means that 25 earthquakes have been confirmed in South Carolina this year, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey. Including Wednesday’s earthquake, 13 of the past 17 were in the Columbia area.

On March 13, a 2.0 magnitude earthquake hit off the South Carolina coast, but that was in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Palmetto State.

Before Wednesday, the most recent earthquakes recorded in South Carolina were a pair of May 29 seismic events in the Cross Anchor area, that registered as 1.8 and 1.9 magnitude quakes, respectively, according to the USGS.

There were 35 confirmed earthquakes in South Carolina in 2025.

In 2024, there were 30 earthquakes in the Palmetto State, after 28 quakes were recorded in 2023, South Carolina DNR records show.

History of earthquakes in SC

It had been uncommon for earthquakes to hit outside the Midlands area of the Palmetto State, specifically beyond Kershaw County, where 75 earthquakes have been confirmed since the end of June 2022, according to the South Carolina DNR.

That’s also where South Carolina’s most powerful recent earthquakes were recorded on June 29, 2022.

On that day, two earthquakes — one a 3.5 magnitude and the other 3.6 — were included in a flurry of tremors and aftershocks. Those were the two largest quakes to hit South Carolina in nearly a decade. A 4.1-magnitude quake struck McCormick County in 2014.

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Anyone who felt tremors and shaking or heard rumbling from Wednesday’s earthquake can report it to the USGS.

The most recent earthquakes mean at least 192 have been detected in the Palmetto State since the start of 2022, according to South Carolina DNR. All but 64 of the quakes have been in the Midlands.

In all, 133 earthquakes have hit the Columbia area since a 3.3-magnitude quake was recorded Dec. 27, 2021, according to the DNR.

The S.C. Emergency Management Division said the majority of the recent earthquakes were classified as a micro quakes, according to the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.

No major damage or injuries have been reported from the recent seismic activity or any of the other recent quakes.

Earthquakes that register 2.5 magnitude or less often go unnoticed and are usually recorded only by a seismograph, according to Michigan Technological University. Any quake less than 5.5 magnitude is not likely to cause significant damage, the school said.

It had been typical for South Carolina to have between six and 10 earthquakes a year, the S.C. Geological Survey previously reported. There have been 202 earthquakes in South Carolina since Jan. 18, 2021, according to DNR. During a 2022 town hall to address the earthquakes, state geologist Scott Howard said as many as 200 smaller tremors might have gone unnoticed and unrecorded.

The strongest earthquake ever recorded in South Carolina — and on the East Coast of the United States — was a devastating 7.3 in Charleston in 1886.

That quake killed 60 people and was felt over 2.5 million square miles, from Cuba to New York and Bermuda to the Mississippi River, according to the state EMD.

Reported earthquakes in SC 2025-26