The Wardman Wire

I felt the first earthquake of my life this morning, at just before 1am.

According to The Times, it was actually 12:56:

Britain was shaken by a huge earth tremor at 12.56am this morning which was felt by people from Yorkshire to the South Coast.

Thousands of people reported their homes being shaken violently and furniture moving and hundreds more took to the streets for safety and to check for damage.

The epicentre of the tremor, which measured 5.3 on the Richter scale according to the British Geological Survey, was centred on the village of Holton cum Beckering, about 15 miles northeast of Lincoln. According to the US Geological Survey, the epicentre was 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from the Earth’s surface.

The tremor is the biggest in Britain since 1984 when north Wales was hit by a quake which registered at 5.4 on the Richter scale.

I live in a very solid old stone house, and the feel was as of a sideways shake for perhaps 20-30 seconds coming up from the ground through my office chair. I am maybe 70 miles from the reported epicentre of Market Rasen.

A long enough time period for the cats to look very worried.

Police in the Midlands received more than 5,000 calls in hour and in Dudley 12 people walked into the police station in their pyjamas.

People reported buildings as large as blocks of flats shaking for up to 30 seconds when the quake struck at 12:56:45.

There was damage to property and localised power cuts but no reported deaths or serious injuries.

An interesting experience, that will doubtless have been a boost to those couples at the crucial moment at the crucial time for whom the earth moved.

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