Kitchen Monkey

29 February 2008

Did The Earth Move for You too Darling!

Well everyone’s been talking about it; you can’t go anywhere without hearing people shopping, standing in queues, on public transport, the radio, everywhere. We are all talking about it!

Guessed it yet, I’m sure you have, the Earthquake of course!

There we were in the very early hours of Wednesday 27th February 2008 when most of us were woken from our sleep by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake hitting the UK.

I remember going to bed around 00.30am and I must of gone straight to sleep. However I work and call it intuition, I knew somehow something was wrong (abit like when a mother wakes before her child cries, I suppose). The house was eerie quiet far too quiet. Then as I wondered why I was awake, that recognisable deep rumble or roar like a train coming. (I remember the last earthquake we felt, and remembered that distinct sound, it makes you think something has crashed into the house!).

Then as it gets louder things started to shake. You heard the doors on the wardrobe, ornaments and photos moving on the dressing table and due to renovation work, items I had piled up moved about clattering together. Jumping out of bed, I could hear my son moving around, as he came darting out of his bedroom we both looked at each other. It seemed to go on for quite a while but this was obviously only seconds. Not knowing whether you should stay put or go outside and then it stopped.

It’s really strange how quiet everywhere goes, almost like the calm before a big summer storm, and how the animals react as pets seem to become uneasy.

It took us all awhile to settle that night/early morning, checking the house you could see lights on in neighbouring houses and people outside wondering what had happened.

I think the one thing that struck me most, was how at breakfast, all of us shattered from the disturbance the night before, my mother suddenly said ‘how in 70 years this was the first quake she had felt and it had genuinely frightened her’. Then my 16 year old son said ‘I have felt 2 like that in a matter of 4 years Grandma!’

Which is true, as that earthquake which was on a Sunday afternoon we felt in our old house just as we had this time around. We had felt this to the extent that we came outside along with all our neighbours, all of us concerned by what was going on. We all looked at each other as we stood in our front gardens looking back at our homes and thought there had been an explosion or something. My son still remembers this today.

It makes you wonder what is happening for us to feel 2 earthquakes of such a magnitude in such a short time. This quake’s epicentre was Market Resan in Lincolnshire and I believe the last one like this was in Northamptonshire.
Dr Brian Baptie, of the BGS, said: "An earthquake of this size, of magnitude five or thereabouts, will occur roughly every 10 to 20 years in the UK.
"So we can get this kind of moderate to significant earthquakes of this size but they're relatively rare."
The BGS recorded an aftershock with a magnitude of 1.8 at about 0400 GMT on Wednesday 27th February 2007.
The main 10-second quake, which struck at 0056 GMT at a depth of 15.4km (9.6 miles), was the biggest recorded example since one with a magnitude of 5.4 struck north Wales in 1984.
What did you feel? The classic of course as I heard on the radio as I drove to work that day, and the DJ announced ‘how this was the first time the earth had moved for his wife!’