A 6.1 magnitude earthquake off the west-northwest coast of Cuba prompted evacuations of several buildings across Miami on Tuesday and was felt as far north as Jacksonville.
Students at Fusion Academy were among those whose day was interrupted when their building was evacuated.
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"The people that are in the top floors, which they said that they felt it even more than we did," student Maria Torrado said.
"We usually hear the fire alarm, like the beam, beam, beep, but this one was very like evacuate now, like they were saying this is not a drill, so it was really scary," Torrado said.
Not everyone felt the quake. Students at the Swatch Watchmaking School were evacuated but said they had no idea why at first.
"The whole break room, and they felt like some sort of earthquake, and that they were evacuating, and we were like, we literally didn't feel a thing. We thought maybe somebody was messing with them, like that. Somebody said, like, did you feel that? And, but I guess there was some sort of quake," Jack Hodapp said.
Streets near some affected buildings were blocked off for a time as the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office set up a command center.
Those evacuated were let back inside shortly after. For some, like Juan Cardona, the cause of the commotion was not immediately clear.
"It was crowded here. It was crowded here," Cardona said.
"In the beginning, I thought there was some kind of a criminal scene, or whatever, but no, it wasn't that. Then talking to the people is when I realized there was an earthquake in Cuba, and then somehow impacted this area of Florida," Cardona said.
The National Weather Service said there is no tsunami risk as a result of the quake. No injuries have been reported.
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