Did the earth move for you..?

[ffutures]

Well, I'm pretty sure that "experience an earthquake" wasn't on my "things to do before you die" list, but at about 1 AM I heard a thud (which I hope isn't going to turn out to be bad news, but so far I haven't spotted anything) and the room shook three or four times. Since I live next to the main railway line into Paddington I assumed it was a train revving its engines, which has a similar effect though with higher frequency. But then I realised I couldn't hear a train, so I chalked it up as traffic or something until I heard the news this morning, and discovered that there had been a 5.2 magnitude earthquake about 120 miles North of me.

It's a shame I didn't know last night, I could have panicked properly then. But never mind...

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

has full details, but it seems to have been fairly boring as earthquakes go; more intense than usual for the UK, but so far nobody seems to have been killed and only one person injured, so it could have been one hell of a lot worse.

Comments

[parakkum.livejournal.com]

It's fun when we have an earthquake while I'm at work (we're about 10km East of the San Andreas fault in California) as the United States Geological Survey building is next door, so we always get immediate reporting on how big the shock was right where we were.

I'm not looking forward to a very large earthquake, as the brick wall that forms one face of my office is likely to turn to shrapnel in short order.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm in a 195 year old brick house, that is not reassuring...

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Just a Martian cylinder landing. Nothing to see here. Move along :)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Ulaaaaaaaaaa
Ulaaaaaaaaaa

[booster17.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I wondered what the hell that was last night!

I did actually wonder about it being an earthquake last night, when the computer desk in front of me actually swayed ansd shook. Though when I couldn't see any other reaction from anyone else outside, I kinda wrote it off as my imagination.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Pretty much the same here - wobbly desk and floor is a bit flexible, but being so close to the railway and main roads they were my main suspects, not seismic events.

[booster17.livejournal.com]

I was sorta expecting car alarms to be going off if it was an earthquake, you see. *shrugs*

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Same here - just not close enough, I suppose.

[mymatedave.livejournal.com]

Oh, so that's what it was.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Maybe. Assuming you didn't just have some coincidental disturbance.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

Wow, I don't hear about too many earthquakes in UK.