Earthquake in the UK!
— It's 1am and it's past bedtime. We're just settling down when the floor shakes!”
It was coming up to 01:00. J and I were just going to bed when the ground wobbled for about two seconds. Then there was a pause and the ground wobbled again.
The wind’s been terrible here this evening – not least because of my cooking – but it seemed to die down and there was an eerie silence.
Earthquake!
Up here on the second floor we thought seriously about dressing pronto and legging it downstairs – we thought the wind was finally going to take our roof off!
A hot, weak tea and a warm blanket later and we had recovered our nerves sufficiently to check out the Internet. Better than trying to guess which cracks in the walls and the ceiling were new, anyway. Or waiting around for the aftershocks.
Getting the data
Forewarned is forearmed, but in default there’s plenty to be said for ‘postwarned’ too. And lest we start to wonder whether we should be checking ourselves into High Royds, here are the facts:
- There was an earthquake
- Its epicentre was between the villages of Holton cum Beckering and West Torrington, both in Lincolnshire [plot it exactly in Google Maps]
- It measured 4.7 in magnitude (presumably on the trusty Richter Scale)
- It occurred 10km below the earth’s surface
- At the time of writing, about 80 minutes after it happened, it had been felt by people as far north as Blyth, as far west as Merthyr Tydfil and as far south as Portsmouth
Visualisations
And now for the pretty pictures:
Sources: IRIS, USGS Earthquake Hazard Program
Left to right: the earthquake as it appeared in Europe (note also the activity in the Mediterranean!); Geo-location of the UK earthquake; World view of earthquakes with UK in the topmost left – compare with South East Asia; responses flood into the USGS survey – a lot of folks’ sleep was upset!
Other reports
27 February 2007 @ 03:06: The BBC has just weighed in with a story and I’m off to bed. I think the coast is clear now!
See also:
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
The earliest masterpiece on the British working class and still strongly relevant today.
- Originally published: 1 Dec 2011 in Books
Old St Paul’s Cathedral
A brief look at the troubled Gothic cathedral that preceded Wren’s famous London landmark.
- Originally published: 12 Aug 2011 in Architecture
Christmas 2009: a visit to the UK
Spending Christmas back in the UK with family.
- Originally published: 31 Dec 2009 in Personalia
Who you gonna call?
Hello you, I'm Mike Padgett. I'm not a Princeton curator, Knoxville mayoral candidate, Kentuckian pastor or Arizona journalist, I just share the same name. In fact, I am a consultant working in user experience and information design.
I also enjoy travel, concerts, films and walking.
I'm originally from Yorkshire, England but nowadays I live in Belgium. My current favourite Belgian beer is Black Albert.
Shameless self-promotion
Over a year in the making, Dopeology.org is my latest personal project: a topology of doping in thirty years of European pro road cycling.
I collected information from thousands of sources, then I modelled and published it via a lightweight user interface.
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