SURREY SHAKES
Magnitude 3.3 earthquake hits Surrey with panicked residents woken by buildings shaking ‘like a truck hit the house’
Dozens of locals in Crawley and the areas surrounding Gatwick reported rumbles and 'loud bangs'
PANICKED residents in Surrey have been woken up by a magnitude 3.3 earthquake that caused whole buildings to “violently shake”.
Loud bangs and rumbles were reported in Epsom, Reigate and Horley, with one man saying it felt like a “truck had hit his house” when the earthquake struck the UK.
2
2
Dozens of terrified residents who live near Gatwick Airport took to social media to say that they felt their "whole house shaking".
Rosie Young tweeted: “Whole block of flats shook! Thank God for #twitter to reassure me it was an earthquake and my flats aren't falling down!!! #Reigate #Surrey”
Stuart Lee tweeted: “Did we just have an earthquake in Surrey? Just woken up to the whole house shaking...”
Tim Dobisz tweeted: “That really was an #earthquake in Surrey, a couple of minutes ago, wasn't it!! House shaking woke me up.”
Esther tweeted: “Literally just got woken up by an earthquake shaking my bed and so did people all over Surrey that was spooky.”
'FELT LIKE A TRUCK HIT THE HOUSE'
Chris Vick tweeted: “That was the biggest one so far. Felt like a truck had hit the house.”
James King, the councillor for South Park and Woodhatch ward, tweeted: “Was that an earthquake in Reigate just now?”
It comes also two weeks after a 2.4 magnitude earthquake struck parts of Surrey in the early morning.
The quake was felt by 80 residents in the same part of the UK where a "swarm" of tremors hit last summer. - prompting warnings that more could be in store.
At the time, Seismologist Davie Galloway said the tremors were part of a "natural earthquake" and "not linked to fracking or any other similar activity".
Last year special monitoring equipment was installed to better understand what is happening beneath the surface of the area after 15 tremors were felt between April 1 to October 9.
TWO WEEKS AFTER MAGNITUDE 2.4 QUAKE
Mr Galloway warned: "It could be the start of another swarm, or it may just be a single event. Time will tell.
"With the past cluster or swarm we put it down to natural seismicity. We live on a dynamic planet.
"Plates move about all the time. They're bashing and moving away from each other."
MOST READ IN NEWS
He said the UK was not on the edge of a plate so did not get hit by huge quakes, but stresses could still affect the rocks.
There are roughly 200-300 earthquakes in Britain every year, but the vast majority are so small that no one notices them. However between 20-30 are over 2.0 magnitude which can be felt over a wider area.
UK earthquakes, particularly in Scotland, are most often attributed to glacial rebound.
Topics