A day after a rare 5.8 magnitude earthquake rattled the East Coast, National Parks Service officials in Washington D.C. have discovered several cracks near the top of the Washington Monument.

The 127-year-old stone monument, which stands 555 feet tall, remains closed indefinitely while engineers look for any signs of additional structural damage.

Other monuments in the area, including the nearby Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials are accepting visitors Wednesday after preliminary investigations showed no signs of damage from the quake.

Flights to Washington D.C. have also resumed normally after brief interruptions Tuesday afternoon. For a short time, Terminal A at Washington’s Raegan National Airport was evacuated because of a “gas smell” while departures out of Dulles International were breifly put on hold as a precaution.

Officials in D.C. say that a planned dedication for the new Martin Luther King Memorial will take place as scheduled this weekend despite the quake fallout and threats of severe weather from Hurricane Irene.

Source: CBS News