The quake struck 35 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of the US federal capital, in the state of Maryland, at 5:04 am (0904 GMT,) the US Geological Survey said.

It was felt by residents living and working in downtown Washington near the White House, but not apparently by President Barack Obama.

Asked if he felt the pre-dawn shaking, Obama told reporters, "I didn't."

The event prompted a flood of calls to emergency services, officials told the Washington Post, which headlined its coverage "Yes, that was an earthquake."

The USGS received thousands of reports about the quake, including from states as far away from the epicenter as Georgia, Wisconsin and New York.

Earthquakes are unusual on the US east coast, and there is no record of a temblor ever having been centered in the US capital.

The earliest quake known to have affected the capital was in 1758, but it is believed also to have been centered in Maryland.

In 1828, then-president John Quincy Adams recorded in his diary his shock at the "violent" tremors associated with a quake that was felt across seven states on the US east coast, as well as Washington, the USGS said.

"I was writing in this book, when the table began to shake under my hand and the floor under my feet," he wrote. "There was a momentary sensation as of the heaving of a ship on the waves. It continued about two minutes, then ceased."

Friday's quake was significantly less dramatic for most who felt it, creating just a few wobbly seconds that some initially mistook for the rolling thunder that often accompanies the region's summer storms.

The temblor was too small to impress transplants to the region from seismically-active California, where 5.0-magnitude quakes are not uncommon.

"A 3.6 earthquake (hit abt 5 am) isn't REAL," tweeted Major Garrett, the White House correspondent for Fox News.

"It's like the rattle of ice when I put my G&T (gin and tonic) down," the south California native wrote.

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