Earthquake hits South Cumbria
Last updated at 12:44, Wednesday, 29 April 2009
AN earthquake hit South Cumbria at 11.22am yesterday. The epicentre was in Ulverston. According to the National Geological Survey, the quake measured 3.7 on the Richter scale.
AN earthquake hit South Cumbria at 11.22am yesterday. The epicentre was in Ulverston. According to the National Geological Survey, the quake measured 3.7 on the Richter scale. It was felt as far away as Blackpool.
Job Centre Plus workers in Phoenix House, Barrow, were evacuated after tremors shook the building.
Job centre worker Danny Turner said: "It was weird. My desk started shaking and people were getting a bit worried, wondering what the hell was going on.
"I thought there had been an explosion in the street, and then we were told to evacuate the building."
John Frodsham, 54, of Grasmere Road, Ulverston, felt the rumble at home with his 21-year-old son, Stuart.
Mr Frodsham said: “My son came through and said ‘what are you doing’ and then we went to see if the old lady next door had fallen down the stairs.
“It lasted about 10 to 15 seconds and shook the house. You could feel it under your feet. It was a horrible feeling.
“The entire street was out and the man across the road who works at Glaxo came flying out of his house in his pyjamas and said ‘what the bloody hell was that? It brought all the neighbours out.
“It seemed to go on forever. I remember the one a few years back but that only lasted a couple of seconds.
“The roof is still there and there were no windows broken.”
Lynne Brennand from Cartmel said: “We are all shaking. Me and all my neighbours ran out of our houses.
“There is no damage I can see, but I am still quite shaken up. We all ran out of the houses, we thought they were collapsing. It was horrendous. It sounded like an explosion or a plane crash.”
Mandy Archer from Ravenstown near Grange said: “I was in the bath, I was scared to death. The whole house shook. It sounded like something landing on the roof.”
The largest earthquake ever felt in the UK was measured at 6.1 on the Richter scale in 1931
News of the earthquake was soon being discussed online with many people on Twitter, the micro blogging sitem saying they had felt the tremor.
Joanne Lambert added this message on Twitter: "My In-laws thought there was an explosion near them but looks like it was an earthquake."
The earthquake was also felt in Lancaster and Preston. Tracy Fielding in Preston posted on Twitter: "I'm not going mad - there really was an earthquake and I felt it!!"
Did you feel the earthquake? If you did contact the Evening Mail news@nwemail.co.uk or call 01229 840150
First published at 12:06, Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk
I felt it at BAE Systems in Barrow.
It scared me and for a moment I feared for my life.View all 28 comments on this article
Have your say
I was in Ulverston going up the stairs of Rushton's the shoe repairer's to collect my daughter's boots. My daughter lives in Rome close to where the Italian Earthquake occured a few weeks ago. She was watching the news in Rome when a picture of Ulverston came onto the screen. She could'd believe that we too had had an earthquake. I nearly feel down the stairs at the shoe repairers as the stairs moved. I then collected my daughter's boots. Boots that had been in two earthquakes. Later that day my daughter rang me up to make sure that we were alright, just as I had done to enquire about her a few weeks before.
Posted by Patricia Prosser on 29 April 2009 at 23:33