Discovery Headquarters Evacuated After Earthquake

NEW YORK - The Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. was evacuated after a 5.9 earthquake hit Virginia Tuesday afternoon, with tremors felt as far as New York City.

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"We evacuated and sent everyone home for the day," a Discovery Communications spokeswoman told The Hollywood Reporter. The cable networks juggernaut employs 1,500 there. "No reports yet of any damage or injuries," she added.

Comcast's headquarters in Philadelphia also allowed its employees to go home, closing for the rest of the day Tuesday. "Out of an abundance of caution, we did allow people to go home," a spokeswoman said. "There does not appear to be any damage and no injuries. We are just being cautious and trying to be considerate of our employees."

Some members of the Washington, DC government relations staff for cable giant Comcast and its entertainment firm NBCUniversal also left their building a block away from the Capitol, but it wasn't formally evacuated, according to a spokeswoman. She said staff started trickling back in after the quake.

Contacts said cell phone service was disrupted in parts of the East Coast immediately after the earthquake, but seemed to be better soon thereafter.

Studio and stage operators in New York said their operations were hardly affected by the quake. "Steiner Studios chose to briefly evacuate its building as a precautionary measure while its resident engineer verified that there was no damage," a spokeswoman for the big Brooklyn studio said.