Earthquake?!?!?!!?

[Daniel]

Just had a freaky moment. Was sitting here in front of the PC when the chair seemed to wobble a bit. Tonnes of people in the server I was playing in said they felt it too in places like Yorkshire, Birmingham and London. Did anyone else feel it? Pretty freaky :mark:

[Malbec]

Just had a freaky moment. Was sitting here in front of the PC when the chair seemed to wobble a bit. Tonnes of people in the server I was playing in said they felt it too in places like Yorkshire, Birmingham and London. Did anyone else feel it? Pretty freaky :mark:

Yes, I'm in London and felt it too. Not the strongest I've been in but certainly enough to shake the whole house.

[Larsen]

I felt it shake too. Im in Northampton. Heck, felt like i almost fell of my chair

[Daniel]

Yeah not the strongest. Just enough for me to feel it but too weak for me to realise what it was till someone else mentioned it. Thought I was having a back spasm :mark:

[PuddleJumper]

Oh. My. God. :s hock:

If that wasn't a big one, I don't ever want to experience a big one!

[Daniel]

Well I'm guessing you're closer to the epicentre then. Everything ok there?

[PuddleJumper]

Everything seems ok. No damage that I can tell. But man, the adrenalin is flowing right now.

BBC News say it was 4.7 on the Richter scale, epicentre in Hull.

[Daniel]

Same here. Not so much because it was scary but because I've never even felt a tremor before.

[PuddleJumper]

Thankfully no reports of any casualties or major damage.

Can you imagine if you'd been half way across the Humber Bridge when it happened. Would be wanting some clean underwear now. :p :

[Daniel]

Doesn't bear thinking about! I was sitting on a computer chair and it was bad enough.

[BTCC Fan#1]

As a Geology student it was amusing watching the sudden flurry of excited course-mates signing into MSN!

Magnitude 4.7 is very big for the UK. Relevant data is here thanks to USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008nyae.php#details

Pretty rough shaking here in Manchester, lasting about 15 seconds i'd say. The furniture was moving visible.

If you felt it then fill in the survey on the USGS website, helps to refine their data.

[gadjo_dilo]

BBC News say it was 4.7 on the Richter scale, epicentre in Hull.

Is Hull a seismic active area? I mean had you other earthquakes with that epicentre?

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I was lying in bed and felt my bed shaking at about 1pm, then the house started to shake. It gently subsided and I thought 'COOL!!!' And text about 6 friends to see if they felt it! None had. :(

[PuddleJumper]

Is Hull a seismic active area? I mean had you other earthquakes with that epicentre?
Not especially. I think you'd expect them to occur more to the west of the UK, in Wales maybe. But it's not unknown for earthquakes to occur along the North Sea coast. In 1931 there was a large quake off the coast of Norfolk near Great Yarmouth.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Does this class as an earthquake or an earth tremour?


It was hardly catastrophic!

http://images.kenyonhill.com/dd/Images/19-Top-Right-5374.jpg

[leopard]

Atop of it all is fine.

I didn't see people do some preventive action for the bigger earthquake. Seems all keep continuing job and enjoy the shake. :D

[Robinho]

it woke me in Stoke on trent, the wardrobe doors had a good shake.

given how far the quake was felt it was apretty big one for the UK, as the epicentre is now quoted as somewhere in Lincolnshire at 5. something on the richter scale. not exactly highly dangerous, but enough to topple a few chimneys and injure one person

[Mark]

I was staying in a hotel in York last night at first I thought it was Karen turning over in bed then I realised she wasn't then the door started to rattle like someone was trying to get into the room. It was only when it all stopped and Karen said "Was that an earthquake?!" that I realised what had just happened!

[PuddleJumper]

I was staying in a hotel in York last night at first I thought it was Karen turning over in bed
You'd better hope she doesn't read this. How insulting! :p :

[gadjo_dilo]

I can't understand how it could wake you up. This year we've already had an 4.8 and an 4.7 earthquake and nobody felt them. We know about them from the papers. Probably it's a matter of experience. :laugh:

[PuddleJumper]

I guess it depends on how deep your sleep is. Some of the people I work with slept right through it and didn't know until they heard the news this morning, whereas others were woken by it.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I can't understand how it could wake you up. This year we've already had an 4.8 and an 4.7 earthquake and nobody felt them. We know about them from the papers. Probably it's a matter of experience. :laugh:

Where do you live?

[Hazell B]

Is Hull a seismic active area?

Only when the pubs turn out :p :

I'm about 40 miles from the Lincs probable epicentre, 25 miles from Hull's other possible epicentre and it wasn't actually that bad to be fair. Maybe 20 seconds of the house shaking about and furnature moving a bit, then calm. Not even felt the aftershocks we had here, but they've clearly happened as the river's silt was swirling about on and off all morning.

There's a minor crack appeared between my 8 year old barn and the building we finished in October and that's all the damage I've heard about. Those two buildings would have settled in spring anyway, so it's no problem at all. One of my dogs was annoyed at being woken up, the other went straight back to sleep, just like myself and my partner :p :

National news has reported people out in the streets screaming.
Lightweights :rolleyes: :p :

[Daniel]

National news has reported people out in the streets screaming.
Lightweights :rolleyes: :p :

Reminds me of this Simpsons quote :)

Kent Brockman: Hordes of panicky people seem to be evacuating the town for some unknown reason. Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Professor: Yes I would, Kent.

[Sleeper]

Once again I slept through an earthquake.

[RaikkonenRules]

Got a good 30 secs in Newark. :eek:

The epicenter was confirmed between Market Rasen and Wragby in Lincolnshire. That's only about 30 miles from me.

[GridGirl]

I didn't feel it. I don't think it was significant enough to warrant so much air time on the news and radio this morning. By 9am I was ready to scream if I heard another story about someones parrot falling off its perch.

My house is roughly 200m away from where they pinpointed the epicentre of a 5.0 earthquake a few years ago. The earth did move for me that day :D

[Mp3 Astra]

Some of my friends felt it - a bit disappointed because I was awake half an hour earier...

But it's good that nobody was hurt!

[Hazell B]

But it's good that nobody was hurt!


I was thinking about that. Imagine the death toll if it had happened during school run/rush hour? Cars would have been bouncing off each other, people hit by falling chimmney stacks .... nasty.

How come earthquakes always seem to happen during darker hours? Is it something to do with the sun's heat making things expand then contract? Or gravity?

[Mp3 Astra]

I was thinking about that. Imagine the death toll if it had happened during school run/rush hour? Cars would have been bouncing off each other, people hit by falling chimmney stacks .... nasty.

How come earthquakes always seem to happen during darker hours? Is it something to do with the sun's heat making things expand then contract? Or gravity?

That is a good point. I don't know the reason for it though - maybe our resident geology student can shed some light on that. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

[Drew]

Brilliant, as soon as I sod off there's an 'earthquake', marvellous :(

[gadjo_dilo]

This topic made me think of one of Shakespeare's plays: Much ado about nothing.

[Mark]

I doubt it affected traffic much. The strong winds were more of a problem.

[jim mcglinchey]

Do you think that those effected are insured against earthquakes? I haven't read the small print in my own cover lately.

[AndySpeed]

I had a different reaction to a lot of people - I was in bed at that point very close to sleep. I just rolled over and thought not much of it, until my housemate text me and asked if my room just shook.

I went straight back to bed while they discussed it and decided our house was haunted... :\

[jso1985]

That is a good point. I don't know the reason for it though - maybe our resident geology student can shed some light on that. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.

My dad is a geologist so I had to ask him, and the answer is that is just a coincidence, in fact many famous earthquakes have happened during daylight, like the 1923 Tokyo Earthqueake that happened at noon.

[maxu05]

I was sitting at my computer with the headphones on, and I could feel my chair shake, then I remembered that I ate a tin of baked beans last night :D

[Rollo]

The BBC World Service this morning reported the estimated damage in the centre of Hull at £11m. Please forgive my ignorance here but did they tear down and rebuild Hull twice? I didn't think Hull was worth 11 million.

They had local residents on the telly, and it just wasn't possible to take them seriously; especially considering that one chap was worried about his garden gnome collection.

[slinkster]

I didn't think this earthquake felt as bad as the last Dudley one... but I was awake anyway at the time. My first thought is always that it's a poltergeist and then my brain kicks in. :D Anyway, I woke up my boyfriend and told him we just had an earthquake and he must have thought I was dreaming because he just said "have we?" and rolled over and went back to sleep!

When we were in Japan last August, we experienced an earthquake, again at night. It actually didn't feel that bad because we were in a highrise block which swayed as it was designed too. Closer to the ground it would probably have rumbled alot more. Still pretty frightening though to feel sea sick in a building. :eek:

[Azumanga Davo]

The BBC World Service this morning reported the estimated damage in the centre of Hull at £11m. Please forgive my ignorance here but did they tear down and rebuild Hull twice? I didn't think Hull was worth 11 million.

They had local residents on the telly, and it just wasn't possible to take them seriously; especially considering that one chap was worried about his garden gnome collection.

Probably a misquote for 11 pounds?