UK Earthquakes

Thankfully, we get few serious earthquakes in the UK. Big ones are rare. The website below keeps records of those that have occurred recently.

See https://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_uk_events.html

Kent earthquake

Earthquakes are far less common in the UK, but they do occur. Last night one occurred in Kent shaking homes and waking people in the middle of the night. This one was 4.2 on the Richter scale. This one was felt by my son near Canterbury and they think some tiles came off their cottage roof.

Some UK earthquakes have caused real disruption and damage. This one must have been quite a shock to those that were aware of it. Being in the middle of the night, many may have been totally unaware. Even though this one lasted several seconds it was nowhere near the force of the recent ones in Nepal which were many orders of magnitude stronger. The strongest UK earthquake in recent times was the Colchester earthquake of 1884 which measured 4.6 on the Richter scale.

A second large earthquake in Nepal

News is just breaking that a second large earthquake has struck eastern Nepal. This was a 7.3 magnitude quake and it must have been so frightening for those poor people already struggling to come to terms with the first earthquake a few weeks ago. It must be so hard for the children.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32701385 .