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Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:19 am
by jazzrules
I'm starting this here because I'm aware that not all British members visit the ODB.

At 00.58GMT this morning (27th Feb), most of England was struck by a magnitude 5.3 earthquake whose epicentre was at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. So who felt it, and did it cause any damage where you are?

Here in Bradford it woke me up, and there are reports of a number of buildings receiving structural damage. I also heard that a man had to be taken to hospital in Barnsley with a broken pelvis because the chimney on his house collapsed on his bed.

I'm so glad I felt it (experiencing an earthquake was on my list of things i want to do before I die!) - a couple of my friends slept through it and are absolutely gutted.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:57 am
by Whisper
Felt it, no damage, all good... :)

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:02 am
by Scatterlung
Nothing here, I guess Bristol's too far out.

I hope I just missed it by sleeping, and thus most of the wildlife was harmed. I am of course talking about the teen population.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:55 am
by Evolution Prime
While I am not from the UK (so I didn't fell this one), I do have my own earthquake experience. It was even in what would seem and unlikely place, in a submarine. When I was in the Navy, a 6.3-6.8 magnitude earthquake hit around the Seattle area. I was in port and going through a refit maintence period on my sub. Normally the sub is in the water, which I am sure is obvious, but this time we were in drydock. So the sub was out of the water an on cement blocks. I quake probably only lasted like 30 seconds but it seemed much longer. I was back in the engine room doing paperwork for an upcoming maintenance on one of the nuclear instuments for the reactor. I immediately grabbed on of the pipes to prevent myself from falling out of my chair. I swore that the sub was going to tip over, which would have been bad since I was on a sub that carried 24 nuclear missiles, not to mention the nuclear reactor onboard. The quake was powerful enough to take our shore power offline and several pumps that were on the dock that were set up cool heat exchangers to cool some reactor components. Part of the dock split as well. Since we lost shore power, we only had the ships battery to supply power since the reactor could not be started up due to being in the drydock. So we had to shut off all the lights in non vital areas and turn off all non essential electrical loads to conserve electricity. It was definitely a weird experience to go though.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:00 pm
by jazzrules
Evolution Prime wrote:While I am not from the UK (so I didn't fell this one), I do have my own earthquake experience. It was even in what would seem and unlikely place, in a submarine. When I was in the Navy, a 6.3-6.8 magnitude earthquake hit around the Seattle area. I was in port and going through a refit maintence period on my sub. Normally the sub is in the water, which I am sure is obvious, but this time we were in drydock. So the sub was out of the water an on cement blocks. I quake probably only lasted like 30 seconds but it seemed much longer. I was back in the engine room doing paperwork for an upcoming maintenance on one of the nuclear instuments for the reactor. I immediately grabbed on of the pipes to prevent myself from falling out of my chair. I swore that the sub was going to tip over, which would have been bad since I was on a sub that carried 24 nuclear missiles, not to mention the nuclear reactor onboard. The quake was powerful enough to take our shore power offline and several pumps that were on the dock that were set up cool heat exchangers to cool some reactor components. Part of the dock split as well. Since we lost shore power, we only had the ships battery to supply power since the reactor could not be started up due to being in the drydock. So we had to shut off all the lights in non vital areas and turn off all non essential electrical loads to conserve electricity. It was definitely a weird experience to go though.


That's quite an experience EP - ours just seems to have toppled a few chimneys (which is good but not really that spectacular)

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:34 pm
by High Command
I was still up when it hit and I'm not too far from the epicentre since I live in Lincolnshire.
Everyone at work disagreed though. They all said they got woken up by it and were scared.
Personaly I thought it was pretty cool.

Sucks to be the guy with the broken pelvis though.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:10 pm
by Halo
I remember a similar incident happening in Virginia a few years back. People freaked out, and I thought it was awesome. 8)

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:27 pm
by Blast Cannon
I honestly didn't know what to think when I woke up to find my bed, cabinet and basically entire room shaking. This was my second earthquake and by far the strongest and most frightening... bugger knows how people deal with it as a semi-regular occurence.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:58 am
by ***Galvatron***
Evolution Prime wrote:While I am not from the UK (so I didn't fell this one), I do have my own earthquake experience. It was even in what would seem and unlikely place, in a submarine. When I was in the Navy, a 6.3-6.8 magnitude earthquake hit around the Seattle area. I was in port and going through a refit maintence period on my sub. Normally the sub is in the water, which I am sure is obvious, but this time we were in drydock. So the sub was out of the water an on cement blocks. I quake probably only lasted like 30 seconds but it seemed much longer. I was back in the engine room doing paperwork for an upcoming maintenance on one of the nuclear instuments for the reactor. I immediately grabbed on of the pipes to prevent myself from falling out of my chair. I swore that the sub was going to tip over, which would have been bad since I was on a sub that carried 24 nuclear missiles, not to mention the nuclear reactor onboard. The quake was powerful enough to take our shore power offline and several pumps that were on the dock that were set up cool heat exchangers to cool some reactor components. Part of the dock split as well. Since we lost shore power, we only had the ships battery to supply power since the reactor could not be started up due to being in the drydock. So we had to shut off all the lights in non vital areas and turn off all non essential electrical loads to conserve electricity. It was definitely a weird experience to go though.


An earthquake was on someones list of experiences they WANTED to have before they died ? :lol:

After I read that I literally laughed out loud.

Anyway, yes, I too was am still living in Seattle and felt that one all too well, it literally knocked me out of bed as I was just waking up from a job I had at the time on the night shift...there was one smaller quake the same size as this one 5.3 when I lived in California and it was nothing, felt like a large truck bouncing down the road but this on which was closer to the 6.8 magnitude you mentioned scared the bloody hell out of me...not something I want to go through again.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:05 pm
by jazzrules
***Galvatron*** wrote:An earthquake was on someones list of experiences they WANTED to have before they died ? :lol:

After I read that I literally laughed out loud.


Well, you know, being from the UK, where we hardly ever have earthquakes that you can feel, wanting to experience one doesn't seem that stupid. It's not like I can say "Ooh, this place is going to have an earthquake next week - lets go on holiday there so I can feel it"

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:29 pm
by ***Galvatron***
jazzrules wrote:
***Galvatron*** wrote:An earthquake was on someones list of experiences they WANTED to have before they died ? :lol:

After I read that I literally laughed out loud.


Well, you know, being from the UK, where we hardly ever have earthquakes that you can feel, wanting to experience one doesn't seem that stupid. It's not like I can say "Ooh, this place is going to have an earthquake next week - lets go on holiday there so I can feel it"


Oh I did not think you were stupid I just meant that's not something I've ever heard on anyone's wish list before they died let alone any wish list so I thought it was funny, the earthquake, the 6.8 magnitude here in Seattle, Washington USA was the first major earthquake in thirty years, there was about a 5.0 magnitude in the early 1990's but it felt like the washing machine was way off balance in comparison to the 6.8 is all it felt like to me. 8)

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:08 pm
by jazzrules
***Galvatron*** wrote:
jazzrules wrote:
***Galvatron*** wrote:An earthquake was on someones list of experiences they WANTED to have before they died ? :lol:

After I read that I literally laughed out loud.


Well, you know, being from the UK, where we hardly ever have earthquakes that you can feel, wanting to experience one doesn't seem that stupid. It's not like I can say "Ooh, this place is going to have an earthquake next week - lets go on holiday there so I can feel it"


Oh I did not think you were stupid I just meant that's not something I've ever heard on anyone's wish list before they died let alone any wish list so I thought it was funny, the earthquake, the 6.8 magnitude here in Seattle, Washington USA was the first major earthquake in thirty years, there was about a 5.0 magnitude in the early 1990's but it felt like the washing machine was way off balance in comparison to the 6.8 is all it felt like to me. 8)


A slight over-reaction on my part perhaps. I thought you were laughing at me - not that you found the idea funny.

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 3:29 am
by Stormrider
When was the last time England had an earthquake?

Re: Earthquake hits UK

PostPosted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:46 am
by jazzrules
Stormrider wrote:When was the last time England had an earthquake?


One of this size? 1984

The last earthquake to do damage? Last summer, but it was a lot smaller than this one