posted 09-23-2002 03:31 PM               

by Laura Smith and Martin Delgado, Evening Standard

Britain was hit by its biggest earthquake in more than a decade early today.

Just after 1am a powerful tremor, measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale, woke tens of thousands of people as buildings shook, windows rattled and alarms went off.

The quake was centred on the West Midlands but was felt as far afield as Wales, Yorkshire and London. The Met received more than 50 calls, mostly from the north-west of the capital.

Two sudden shockwaves were felt hundreds of miles apart, knocking out electricity and phone lines, but there were no reports of serious injury or damage to property. The tremor caused widespread alarm, with emergency services across the country reporting a deluge of calls. West Midlands police alone received more than 5,000 calls within an hour of it.

The earthquake would have lasted between 10 and 15 seconds, said the British Geological Survey.

There was a second moment of panic later when an aftershock occurred in the same region at 4.42am, nearly four hours after the original tremor. Seismologists said the earthquake was equivalent to 1,000 tonnes of TNT being set off, or the power of a small nuclear weapon.

Although significant by British standards, it was small by world standards, with tremors in areas such as California and India reaching seven on the Richter scale - equivalent to 32 million tonnes of TNT.

Scientists at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh were immediately alerted and spent the night studying reports as they came in from around the country.

"Although earthquakes are relatively common in the West Midlands, this was fairly big for Britain," Alice Walker, the BGS's head of seismology, told the Standard.

"We would expect something of this size every eight to 10 years in the UK but because this occurred in such a heavily populated area, we were inundated with calls."

Professor Peter Styles, who runs the Earth Monitoring Centre at the University of Keele, said the earthquake was probably caused by an ancient fault line which runs along either side of the enormous block of rock on which Birmingham sits.

He said: "Either side of it there are quite active faults. They run down the edge of Wales. It's almost certainly one of those faults that's moving a bit this morning."

Police in Dudley and Wolverhampton - the epicentre of the tremor - were deluged with calls from terrified householders woken when their houses began to shake. Dudley police said 12 people in their nightclothes walked into their local police station.

Alex Potter from south Birmingham said his first thought was that the city had been hit by a bomb. He said he felt two tremors, both of which began with a "boom" sound. "My immediate thought was, 'Oh God. They've bombed Birmingham'. My windows shook, my chair shook, the whole thing shook. It was really quite frightening."

The second tremor caused "really violent shaking", waking up his neighbours.

Colin Smith, 45, of Erdington, Birmingham, added: "I was sound asleep when I was thrown on the floor, banging my head. The house shook - it was terrifying."

Duty Officer Bill Rice of West Midlands Ambulance service said he also felt the tremor from the control room in Dudley. He said: "The building shook for about 30 seconds and all the alarms sounded. We've had a couple of calls to people who are rather upset and frightened but we have dealt with those."

Richard Flynn, from Oldbury in the West Midlands, said: "The house started shaking quite violently at about 1am. All the power was cut off and seemed to be so for about a five-mile radius. The shaking and trembling was really quite severe. Quite a few people came out of their houses wondering what was going on. The streets were in darkness."

He said the power was restored around 20 minutes later.
http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/story.html?in_review_id=703774&in_rev iew_text_id=677451

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'Quake could not have been predicted'

by Laura Smith, Evening Standard
The earthquake across Britain would have been virtually impossible to predict, the British Geological Survey said today.

Alice Walker, head of seismology at the Edinburgh-based BGS, told the Standard: "Although we know where events of this kind are going to occur, we can't say exactly when. If we knew that, it would be a major step forward in seismology.

"A city like Los Angeles is right on top of a subterranean plate margin [fault lines between the rocks making up the earth's surface] and is therefore in much greater danger. The nearest plate margin to Britain is in mid-Atlantic but when it moves it builds up pressure in the UK, something snaps, the pressure is suddenly released and the result is an earthquake."

She said although this morning's earthquake, measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale, was large by British standards, tremors in places like California, Japan and India can reach seven.

"Although earthquakes are relatively common in the West Midlands, this was fairly big for Britain," she said. "It is equivalent to about 1,000 tonnes of TNT or a small atomic bomb.

"We would expect something of this size to occur around 1,000 times a year worldwide and around every eight to 10 years in the UK but because this occurred in such a heavily populated area, we were inundated with calls.

"The West Midlands is not the most prone to earthquakes in the country but it just so happens that recently they have had some interesting activity, with recent tremors in Warwick and Melton Mowbray.

"Wales and North-West Scotland are the areas most prone to tremors in Britain, being situated on particularly active fault lines."

Ms Walker said this morning's tremor was less damaging than it could have been because it occurred 10km beneath the ground.

"Had it been 5km or 2km below it might have been a different story," she said.

The biggest recorded earthquake on land in the UK - measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale - was in Pwllheli in North Wales in 1984.

http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/story.html?in_review_id=703776&in_rev iew_text_id=677453

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'I was thrown out of bed'

by Laura Smith

Shocked householders across the country spoke today of their fear during the earthquake. In the West Midlands - epicentre of the tremor - they deluged police with calls after being thrown from their beds as the earthquake shook their homes for up to 30 seconds. Dudley police said 12 people had walked into their station dressed in nightclothes.

Alex Potter, from Birmingham, said his first thought was that the city had been hit by a bomb. He felt two tremors, both beginning with a "boom" sound. "My immediate thought was: 'Oh God, they've bombed Birmingham'," he said. "My windows shook, my chair shook, the whole thing shook. It was really quite frightening." Colin Smith, 45, of Erdington, Birmingham, said: "I was sound asleep when I was thrown on the floor, banging my head. The house shook - it was terrifying."

The BBC reported that its building in Birmingham - where Edwina Currie was broadcasting live - had "shaken extensively". The former Tory MP was broadcasting her weekly news discussion programme, Late Night Currie, on Radio Five Live at Pebble Mill when the quake interrupted her. She said: "What on earth! Good Lord - what was that?" However, she continued the programme. It was only later that she realised she had experienced an earthquake.

She said: "The whole table started to shake. It was quite an experience ... and it wasn't a nice one. I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck."

West Midlands Ambulance service said the tremor was felt in its control room in Dudley. Duty Office Bill Rice said: "The building shook for about 30 seconds and all the alarms sounded." Richard Flynn, from Oldbury, West Midlands, said the quake caused a 20-minute power cut. "The shaking and trembling was really quite severe. Quite a few people came out of their houses wondering what was going on," he said.

The length of Wales was shaken and people more than 120 miles apart felt two sudden shockwaves. Emergency services in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, were inundated with calls and in Wrexham, north Wales, police said their control room in a tower block had shaken violently. Police in Merseyside and Greater Manchester took hundreds of calls. Staff at Forest Bank Prison in Salford called police to report a suspected jail-break, only to find the noises they had heard were caused by the tremor.

The earthquake was also felt in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and as far south as north London. Evening Standard defence writer Robert Fox was working in the top-floor study of his King's Cross home when he felt the tremors. "The whole house started shaking," he said. "The thing that was really worrying was the building up of vibrations. I wondered whether it was the preliminary of a much bigger earthquake. Then I decided that real earthquakes don't happen in Britain and went back to work."

posted 09-23-2002 04:06 PM            

2002 and the brits are still in a monarchy.