Rutland’s second coming – new earthquake hits Midlands
A second earthquake in 24 hours hits Rutlands in the Midlands with scores of reports including “shaking buildings”. Were you shaken or stirred?
A 3.5 earthquake has struck the Rutland area of the east Midlands – 24 hours after Thursday’s that shook houses for nearly 10 seconds.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the latest 3.5-magnitude quake struck the Oakham area at around 7:50am on Friday. The organisation had already received 600 reports from members of the public, compared with 450 on Thursday.
Edinburgh-based BGS seismologist David Gallaway told Channel 4 News: “We record 200 earthquakes a year – but most go unnoticed by the general public. Normally you would see an earthquake, followed by an aftershock. But to get two earthquakes of similar sizes is uncommon.”
‘The building shook’
Residents in the Rutland area and neighbouring Lincolnshire claimed the latest quake was more powerful than the first.
Dave Stevens from Oakham wrote: “Yesterday’s was a sudden loud bang. This morning’s felt more like the 2008 Market Rasen quake. It really rattled the doors of my shower!”
The England cricketer Stuart Broad tweeted: “Mum just text saying an Earthquake knocked her brew off the table. Not normal news coming out of little Rutland!!!”
Phil Teale said on Twitter: “The building shook as if someone had bumped into it really hard.”
Why now?
Seismologists believe that reasons for the quakes may include regional compression caused by the movement of tectonic plates, and uplift resulting from the melting of ice sheets that covered parts of Britain thousands of years ago.
But the BGS insist its should not be a cause for alarm. “We are living in a dynamic planet in which plates are hitting against one another all the time. It needn’t be a cause for alarm,” Mr Gallaway said.
Mum just text saying an Earthquake knocked her brew off the table. Not normal news coming out of little Rutland!!
— Stuart Broad (@StuartBroad8) April 18, 2014
My thoughts are with Louise from Rutland today: ‘My electric toothbrush fell from a shelf into the sink’. Even our earthquakes are rubbish.
— Greg James (@gregjames) April 18, 2014
Earthquakes of the past
The most powerful earthquake recorded in Britain was at the Dogger Bank in 1931, off the coast of Yorkshire in the North Sea. The magnitude was 6.1 but as the quake was in the ocean, the damage was significantly less than a 2008 in Lincolnshire measuring at 5.2 on the richter scale.
The most damaging earthquake in Britain is still the 4.6-magnitude 1884 Colchester “Great English Earthquake”. More than 1,250 buildings were reportedly damaged and up to five people were killed.
Did you feel Rutland’s second coming? Tweet us at: @channel4news
