Seismograph tracing from today's earthquake. This is typical. The ground is solid rock the whole east coast, so the fault shifts BANG with a little vibration but not the kind of prolonged shaking you saw in Taiwan. There was one here where people heard it instead of feeling it, and a lot of them called the gas company thinking there had been an explosion.

https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/mysterious-explosion-in-northeast-philadelphia-turns-out-to-be-an-earthquake/