Earthquake!

[Mariner]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

Epicentre less than 10 miles from my front door - a mere 5.3 magnitude though that's the strongest there has been here in the UK for 24 years.

It was the first time I've encountered an earthquake and I found it a bit freaky really. It wasn't so much the shaking which woke me but the noise - like a long, very drawn-out thunderclap. I'd staggered out of my bed and started to get dressed before it ended so it certainly got the adrenaline pumping!

One funny thing on the TV news this morning - they were interviewing some bloke from Gainsborough (a small town near-ish the epicentre) and he said his first reaction to the shaking/noise was that it was a terrorist attack! In Gainsborough? WTF!

 

[Gerry]

It was weird. Woke up at 1am to find the bed shaking - as if a very large lorry was passing nearby. Really strange experience. Being half asleep at the time doesn't help either.

 

[DJ12]

I was just dropping off to sleep, the Earth is most inconsiderate

I heard a distant rumble about 5 seconds before hand so was expecting something, but nothing that strong.

I thought about getting up and standing in the doorway, but like that would've made any difference if my house fell down.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I'm about 120 miles away, and I felt it! All the shelves behind me started shaking and rattling, and it was like my chair was being shaken left and right.

 

[Jawed]

I'm pretty sure I felt it last night and I'm in London (N5). There's a railway behind the houses across the street from me. Often a particularly heavy train rumbles along there between 2-4am and whether I'm in bed or a chair I can feel it shaking the entire building.

Well last night the shaking was about twice as strong and so early I thought "hey, that train's early! How come it's so big?"

Jawed

 

[Sxotty]

One funny thing on the TV news this morning - they were interviewing some bloke from Gainsborough (a small town near-ish the epicentre) and he said his first reaction to the shaking/noise was that it was a terrorist attack! In Gainsborough? WTF!

When I was a kid I woke up and my room was shaking stuff falling off shelves, thought it was an earthquake, but it was actually an explosion in a natural gas storage facility nearby (they store it in underground geologic formations). So I can see how one could be fooled

 

[Paul_G]

I'm gutted Live in Kent and didn't feel a thing. Would have been up then too, so i didn't sleep through it. Oh well, guess i have another 25 years thereabouts to wait...

 

[zed]

I'm gutted Live in Kent and didn't feel a thing. Would have been up then too, so i didn't sleep through it. Oh well, guess i have another 25 years thereabouts to wait...

yeah its a bummer when u miss them
dont feel to bad though, heres a list of the quakes within 100km of where i live of equal magnitude or larger than the england one from the last 12months.

ML 4.8 0.2 16 WEL 2692934
ML 4.7 0.2 42 WEL 2705862
ML 5.4 0.2 19 WEL 2737984
ML 5.0 0.3 16 WEL 2739419
ML 4.9 0.2 21 WEL 2750302
ML 4.8 0.2 20 WEL 2780735
ML 5.1 0.2 12 WEL 2784930
ML 5.6 0.1 14 WEL 2802756
ML 4.7 0.2 15 WEL 2804091
ML 4.8 0.2 15 WEL 2811409
ML 5.1 0.3 19 WEL 2812053
ML 5.4 0.2 15 WEL 2818146

i havent noticed a single one!!
the best method of detection is sticking a metal spoon inside a glass so it rattles around in a shake

 

[Davros]

Ok who knocked mariners pr0n collection off the table onto the floor.....

 

[pjbliverpool]

I thought a ghost was shaking my bed

 

[Graham]

On average there are ~40 earthquakes / month in new zealand. With 2-3 being 5.0+.
Up north there was a 6.8 on dec 20th last year, and a 6.7 4 days before it down south.

I know I've felt at least 3 in the last few months.

So yeah, it's a very regional thing

 

[Randell]

didn't feel a think in Bromley, but my colleagues in essex said they did.