According to the British Geological Survey, at 23:14 on 9th June a minor earthquake occurred very close to us. It has been reported that the epicentre was in the Humber Estuary near Grimsby, but the map and exact location in latitude and longitude, as provided to the world by the British Geological Survey, shows it was actually about half a mile ESE of Sunk Island.
It was magnitude 3.9 on the Richter scale and 18 kilometres (just over 11 miles) deep. The Hull Daily Mail website is running a poll which so far suggests about half of the local population didn’t even notice it had happened. However, within seconds Twitter had come alive with people checking they hadn’t imagined it. Some tweets claimed that their houses had violently shook, dogs had gone crazy, pictures had fallen off the wall and a bird from its perch, and the streets filled with questioning neighbours.
In a certain household in Hedon, a single little shake was felt in the house, noticed by 2 of 4 occupants, which includes a rather lazy dog. The 3rd occupant couldn’t fail to notice the very loud rumble but the dog still couldn’t be bothered to raise her head. In a home in Walkington, they heard the rumble but felt no shake, and thought nothing of it until hearing the news the next day.
For those who felt the effects of the quake more than others, there is no need to panic. Earthquakes are more common than you might think, even here in the UK, but they’re usually too small for us to notice. In the case of this particular earthquake, no damage has been reported. Though it was far smaller than the Market Rasen 5.2 magnitude earthquake of 2008, it has been a nice little bit of excitement for the local area and certainly something to talk about.
If you felt the quake, the British Geological Survey have requested that you fill in a simple questionnaire for their records. If this is something you wish to do please click here.
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