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29th February 2008

Earthquake rocks Leeds residents

Yorkshire was left shaken after being hit by the biggest earthquake recorded in the past 20 years.

The earthquake was felt as far a field as Brighton and Wales, with aftershocks felt on Monday morning.

The epicentre was at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire and lasted for 10 seconds, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale. Buildings shook for up to 30 seconds in parts of the West Midlands, Wales, North Yorkshire and London.

Local fire stations were inundated with call-outs to premises with cracks in ceilings, chimneys and walls.

A number of properties were left without electricity; luckily there were no reports of injuries in West Yorkshire.

However a 19-year-old male was taken to hospital after masonry collapsed into his attic bedroom at a house in Wombwell, Barnsley in South Yorkshire.

Dr Brian Baptie from the British Geological Survey (BGS) said: “An earthquake of this size will occur roughly every 10 – 20 years in the UK.” The expert explained that this earthquake was significant but were relatively rare.

A senior seismologist also from (BGS) said: “It was an extremely large earthquake in UK terms but not large in world terms; we’d only classify it as a light earthquake.”

The British Geological Survey, records about 200 earthquakes per year an eighth of which are felt by residents.

The BBC weather forecaster Pete Gibbs purports: “It’s not that unusual to have an earth tremor, but it is unusual to be that widespread and that widely reported. However earth tremors are certainly not that uncommon in the UK.”

The biggest ever recorded earthquake was in 1931, 120km off Great Yarmouth with a recorded magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter scale

In 1984 the biggest on land earthquake was at 5.4 on the Richter scale and was recorded in Lleyn, North Wales.

Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire was left shaken in 1990 after an earthquake hit measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale. Followed by 4.2 in Warwick in September 2000 and 4.1 in Melton, Mowbray, and Leicestershire on October 2001.

Source:

BBC
Yorkshire Evening Post