Balthazar

The biggest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years has shaken homes across large parts of the country.

People in Newcastle, Yorkshire, London, Cumbria, the Midlands, Norfolk and also parts of Wales, felt the tremor just before 0100 GMT.

A man suffered a broken pelvis when a chimney collapsed in South Yorkshire.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the epicentre of the 5.2 magnitude quake was near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire.

Davie Galloway, seismologist for the BGS, said people had reported feeling the tremor from as far as Bangor in Northern Ireland to the west, Haarlem in Holland to the east, Plymouth to the south and Edinburgh to the north.

Student David Bates, 19, suffered a broken pelvis when he was pinned under masonry in his attic bedroom in Barnsley Road, Wombwell, South Yorks. His father Paul Bates said: "There was a rumble and then we heard a bang and my son screaming 'Dad'."





His son was taken to hospital and was due to undergo surgery later.

Bev Finnegan, who lives in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, said: "I was terrified to be honest. The noise was really, really terrifying... it was so deep and rumbling.

"It felt like the roof was going to fall in. There were people coming out in their dressing gowns wondering what it was. It was quite an experience." A Lincolnshire police spokeswoman said the force had received dozens of calls from residents but there were no reports of anyone in the county being injured.





"There is slight structural damage, cracks and a couple of chimneys damaged. There's nothing serious at present," she said.

"Mostly people were distressed by it so there were a large quantity of calls coming in."

Speaking from Gainsborough, Mike Thomas, chief fire officer for Lincolnshire, said crews had been called out to 50 incidents and one fire as a result of the quake.

And Justin Cowell, in Gainsborough, told BBC News that it "started as a massive shake".

"People had come out into the street. It seemed the whole town had woken up."

Tom Edwards, from Heckington, Lincolnshire, said he heard a noise like "an underground train and an enormous roar". "I thought I was probably going to get killed."





Dr Brian Baptie, of the BGS, said: "An earthquake of this size, of magnitude five or thereabouts, will occur roughly every 10 to 20 years in the UK.

"So we can get these kind of moderate to significant earthquakes of this size but they're relatively rare."

The BGS recorded an aftershock with a magnitude of 1.8 at about 0400 GMT.

The main 10-second quake, which struck at 0056 GMT at a depth of 15.4km (9.6 miles), was the biggest recorded example since one with a magnitude of 5.4 struck north Wales in 1984. Thousands of people from across England contacted the BBC to described how their homes shook during the tremor.





Jemma Harrison, 22, in Bury, Greater Manchester, said: "It was really bad. I was fast asleep and woke up and the room was shaking and there was a loud bang and alarms were going off."

Natasha Cavey, in Tipton in the West Midlands, said: "All my cupboard doors flew open and the whole house shook, it was unreal. I can't believe it."

David in Alrewas in Staffordshire said: "The birds were flying around like it was daylight.

"It was quite severe. I experienced the Dudley one and this was more severe. "I went outside to see if the roof had collapsed. I could see the furniture in the room moving, it was like it was on a jelly mould."





Dr Baptie said: "The largest earthquake that we know about that has struck the UK was about 100km off the east coast of England on the Dogger Bank and it had a magnitude of 6.1.

David Somerset, 41, from Driffield near Beverley in East Yorkshire, said: "I have never felt one as strong as that one before. I was in my sitting room and the grandfather clock was rattling rather violently.

Philip Norton, a BBC reporter for Look North in Hull, said: "Everything started wobbling.

"The windows were rattling and the blinds were visibly moving. It sounded like the roof was coming in."

BBC reporter Lynn Crombie in Norwich said she was "absolutely terrified" and thought somebody "had driven into the side of the house".

"Then I thought somebody must have kicked the door in and everything continued to rattle inside the house," she said.

Jamil Ali in Sheffield said: "I woke up and the first thing I thought was that there were a load of burglars in the house.

"The kids were screaming and so was my wife. It was that violent you actually moved yourself." The West Midlands was hit by an earthquake in 2002 in the Dudley area that reached a magnitude of 5.0 and one measuring 4.3 hit Folkestone in Kent last year.

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

Blazing Tiger

Oh my such a massive earthquake. This is scarey to think mother earth has this kind of power.

Dark Huntress

At least no one was seriously hurt or killed! That's a daggum long lengthed earthquake though.

Shadow Ranger Blue

It was so awesome, I'm just sitting in my room with my boyfriend, next second it sounds like someone is trying to smash through my door, I look and its like the whole wall was moving then everything began to shake. Nothing fell or anything, but it woke everyone up in Singer Hall, (probably the bad doors). No one knew what had happened and I was running around shouting earthquake out of the window to those who had no idea what was going on.

Madigan

Great, my favorite Scotsman chooses this week to go back home *shakes head* Serves him right!

Seriously though, it is good to know that it wasn't worse and that no one was too severely hurt

RedSavageWarrior

This earthquake woke me up! But I thought it was just more of the strong winds we got the day before or a lorry or something. I didn't realize what it was until I put the news on this morning. Makes living in a country that that has no idea about earthquake proofing buildings exciting...

t-rex

Wow exciting. Good thing no one was killed. This reminds me of the tremor we had last year, I was in our my university library and the damn table started to shake. I got angry with my classmates and other acquaintances on that table; I though they were shaking the table. Anyway there was a big confusing after everyone realised what was taking place. Memories.....

Dark Huntress

lol @ t

Yeah, the earthquake I experienced was in Tennessee. It was late at night, I was watching tv, and when the quake hit it was like this ripple went through the house starting at the front and moving towards the back. It was almost sci-fi, like I could image a giant worm just quickly tunneled through underground or something. Like RSW I didn't learn what had happened until the next day. The quake actually hit N. Carolina, idk how much of it we actually got in Tennessee. It was an interesting experience!

Blazing Fire

Here in Baltimore, we don't have things like that often. THere are faults that run through Maryland, but they are mostly unmoving. If something that did happen though, I would beleive that the local ammunition base and experimenting again. Has happened in the past and the windows and walls sometimes shake. Can be quite nerve wracking.

Anyway, I'm glad to here that no one was hurt of killed by that thing.

t-rex

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dark Huntress @ Feb 28 2008, 12:50 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>Think that is funny? That day was exam day; that was why we were in the library studying. None of us was ready for the test and since we had that tremor we thought we had a valid reason to have the test postponed. So the class rep phoned the lecturer but she told him that the only things that she ran out of her office building with were our test papers. So much for postponing that test...


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dark Huntress @ Feb 28 2008, 12:50 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>Hey everybody, DHA had a visit from Wormy!!