I was in bed last night when the earthquake struck and the whole house shook and made various groaning / banging noises. Given that the epicentre was in the Midlands and I live in the Manchester area, it must have been felt over a wide area.
My question is, were any BackRoomers driving at the time and did you feel anything?
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There is no difference between driving on rural roads in South Lincolnshire and an earthquake! In fact I was in bed asleep 30 miles from the Epicentre and felt nothing. Up in the village shop this morning people were talking about items falling off shelves etc.
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I was woken by a strange rattling noise (just north of Cambridge).
The house didn't shake, but one the cats had obviously been diusturbed by it, as shortly afterwards he came into the room and started miaowing at me.
Mind you he often does that in the middle of the night.
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No, the earth didn't move for me last night (rarely does these days, sadly...).
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It woke me up (in Nottingham), I felt the house shaking and I *think* I heard a lot of noise (cupboards and shelves rattling); I thought it was a plane crash! But I was in a dreamlike state so it may have felt and sounded worse that it was. We had the grand total of one book fall off a shelf. I looked out the window and one of the neighbours was pacing around outside with his arms in the air!
A colleague of mine says that when there was an earthquake in approx. 1986, he was driving a Transit van back to the hire place. He felt a shimmy through the wheels and just thought he'd driven over a bad patch of road surface. When he got to the hire depot a few minutes later, oblivious to it, two stools had fallen over and people were standing around in shock...
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I was awake (West London). I had the impression that the sofa I was lying on shook for several seconds. Checked the cracks in the wall and ceiling to see if they had got any bigger. Decided the whole thing had been a hallucination.
Oddly enough my wife felt the last one, epicentre in Wales I think, but I didn't. She was asleep and missed last night's.
Edited by Lud on 27/02/2008 at 11:44
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It certainly woke me up only 25 to 30 miles from the epicentre. The joists in the bedroom are rather springy at the best of times and the bed must have moved up and down about 6''. I just wish I'd been on the nest with the missus so I could have said 'did the earth move for you, darling?'.
I even went outside to see if there was any damage. Thoughts going through my head were chimneys coming down due to the wind, Special Forces playing silly sods on the very nearby weapons range or even a plane crash. After a while I started to doubt my senses and thought maybe I'd been dreaming.
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The epicentre of the 5.3 magnitude quake was near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. I was woken up by my wife, who was momently shocked, all I felt was a slighty shaking of the house and heard some doors rattling, I nodded off to sleep within seconds afterwards.
The earthquake we had during the night on 23 September 2002 was a lot louder and shook the house a lot more, it sounded like a train or large lorry was driving through the house. Much depends of where you're living relative to the epicentre and how the shockwave travels.
One thing is certain though, the UK is experiencing a lot more earthquakes in recent years with 6 since 2000 so something is going on.
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We had in N Stafforshire: SWMBO woke up, said "there' an earthquake" and 10 seconds later teh house did its usual shake and the furniture moved. 10 seconds.
Not as bad as 1991 - 30 seconds and much rougher.
Or 1984? when I was tying my tie and almost fell down.
UK was covered in 0.75kms of ice 100k years ago and land depressed due to weight.English Channel was land. Ice all gone - so North of England rising. Channel covered in sea so ground falling.
Tilt like that and some movement is bound to happen
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And now back to motoring discussion please.
DD.
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Felt here quite strongly near Stockport. This one didn't wake me but did wake my wife who saw me shaking and thought something was wrong with me at first. It was of course the house and therefore bed moving.
Interestingly the cat lept off the end of the bed seconds BEFORE the house shook... she also did this yesterday morning but nothing felt then but maybe she sensed something???
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I didn't notice it in Macclesfield. Was not driving at the time, but would be interested to know if there was any reported motor accidents as a result. Be a funny insurance claim form...."I was proceeding North on the A34 when an earthquake caused me to crash....."
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I didn't notice it in Macclesfield.
It woke me and my wife up in Congleton. I was struck by how slow a paced vibration it was. Maybe 1Hz.
Wasn't very strong though, no house or car alarms went off (which is the easiest way to tell the severity of such a thing I find!)
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I'm not sure it would be that easy to tell if the ground was shaking whilst driving compared to it being very windy and/or bumpy. Difficult for us to do some testing as we don't know when it happens next.
So hopefully someone can answer the original question.
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One thing is certain though the UK is experiencing a lot more earthquakes in recent years with 6 since 2000 so something is going on.
I think the whole country is slowly sinking under the weight of all the new arrivals.....
Seeing as most are in the lower half; it'll probably snap in half from Liverpool across to the Wash fairly soon.
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I was snoozing/waking up in the back of an SD1 in Abersoch during the 1984 quake, and I thought it felt like someone had started the car, but with no noise. I didn't feel any abrupt motion, the suspension did effectively isolate me - It felt very odd though!
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I live in South Manchester and felt it very strongly. I was watching that nightwatch program on ITV1 and my bedshook violently. At first I thought truck, then I thought plane crash, bomb, house falling down. After 15 seconds watching the laptop rattle like mad and probably damaging the hard drive I realised it was an earth quaker.
I must live about 100 miles from the epicentre, its amazing how strong I felt it but when you look its on virtually the same latitude as the town it happened in. I wonder if there is a fault on the pennine stretch?
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I'm in Rotherham and the central heating radiators rattled a bit on their hangers, SWMBO said, "maybe it's a mouse" LOL.
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In Switzerland some years ago my youngest daughter, then about seven, expressed some apprehension at the thought that the colossal piles of rock on all sides of the road looked too steep for safety and could fall down on the road (in a hotel, she was also alarmed by the word 'Bad' on the bathroom door).
We are used to thinking, in this country, of the earth as firm and stable. Actually a quite small earthquake like the one last night can make the whole country tremble like a jelly. It wouldn't take much more than that to make things start to fall apart.
The entire planet actually has the texture of a ball of cowdung held together by its own gravity. I do hope there aren't any large asteroids heading this way.
:o{
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Interesting as comments are (I fell in the trap) this is not motoring related ;-)
Original question was what was it like to drive during the quake, or something like that. Anyone driving just before 1am today?
I still do not think you'd notice the same as being in a building and stationary. Not for the magnitude of quake last night....
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Anyone driving at the time would be very unlikely to be aware of the incident except, perhaps, for street or other lighting to go off for a second or so.
I quite clearly felt it shake the bed - I live on the North West coastline, so obviously quite some distance away from its centre.
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I think I'd agree you'd not feel it but might notice other things moving etc. when driving.
This time I did not feel it but did a few years back and thought there was a problem with the house so went outside. And then waited for the news just in case! And it was a long wait that time in the early hours...
I wonder what damage could be done to bridges/roads/etc with only a little more strength? Our infrastructure isn't built for earthquakes like say Japan would.
Does make you wonder... I remember what happened to a crossing of the San Fransisco Bay in a big quake - the upper deck fell on the lower one and they are used to quakes. My brother lives near the San Andreas fault I guess (20 miles south of SF) and hence the buildings are all wooden allowing them to flex.
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>>I do hope there aren't any large asteroids heading this way.
That would be "apart from Apophis....."
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Original question was what was it like to drive during the quake or something like that.
I'm surprised no-one has yet mentioned they were driving when it happened?
Not my own experience, but see the second half of my earlier post (and didnt happen last night).
He said he definitely felt something but had no idea it was an earthquake, he put it down to a bad patch of road. Said it felt like the normal lateral shake when a live axle goes over a pothole. He said it was "in about 1986", so this could have been the last big one in 1984.
When I stuck my head out of the window this morning I think there were at least two car alarms going off (keeping it motoring)...
;o)
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To date no one has said that they were personally driving when the Quake struck, yet given the volume of traffic moving on our motorways, there must have been thousands of vehicles about at the time.
I would expect something akin to the effect of driving over a rippled road surface, but it could vary depending on the angle of the road to the source of the disturbance.
It would be most interesting to hear from someone who was actually driving at the time .........
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Quite right Spospe, there was a distinct direction to the ripples, roughly north and south from here I would say, as one would expect. It was as if the surface of the earth shook a couple of inches, quite slowly, a dozen or so times in a north-south direction.
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my first thoughts upon experiencing all the vibrations and rattling were of poltergeist , the last occupant who had the flat before me died in bed ( my bedroom) sent a shiver down my spine as well , i put the radio on (5 live) and after about 20 mins all the texts and e-mails were coming through (phew) about an earthquake.....slept like a baby after that!
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