The night the earth moved

Well there are some things that you really can’t explain. And definitely some things you never anticipate. Being woken up by an earth tremor is one of these things. And that’s what just happened. It lasted for around 5 seconds and startled me awake at about 00:58 (about 15 minutes ago). I didn’t know what to think at all, and it’s a really strange sensation. My first look out of the window revealed a very strange sight indeed, birds flying round at 1am. Hopefully there’s no damage in the area, and that there has been no injury to people. I’ll post more tomorrow, but Sky News are now reporting that there are reports across from Norfolk to Birmingham so it seems it’s been quite widespread….

Update: So now in the light of day more details are emerging. It appears that this is no longer being classed as a tremor and is now officially an earthquake (”I survived the earthquake” t-shirts anyone? ). It measured 5.3 on the Richter scale and was centred across the country in Lincolnshire. It’s the biggest earthquake in the last 25 years to hit the UK, and is an order of magnitude bigger than the “Dudley Earthquake” of 2002, which measured 4.2. It’s been felt as far south as Windsor and as far north as Northumberland, so quite a wide area really.Only reports of injury are one man in South Yorkshire who was in bed and was hit by his chimney pot which had fallen through the roof. Ouch!

So do things seem any stranger now that it’s daytime and the initial adrenaline has worn off? Not really. It still seems like such a strange thing to have happened. As I said in my opening lines hours ago, it’s one of those things you really never expect to happen, and a sensation that you never expect to experience. The rumble was very loud, and the feel of the whole room shaking was quite disconcerting. There have been warnings that an earthquake of this size, and resonating at the depth that it was could lead to after-shocks, something which doesn’t often happen in the UK. I guess it’s wait and see…