Earthquakes? In ENGLAND?

Manchester in the UK has been victim to (at last count) over 40 earthquakes in the last month! All are of small magnitute, but big enough to scare people out of their high-rise offices and homes. I found an interesting link that tries to reassure us "Though they are unusual, earthquake swarms have happened before in other regions of the UK".

But the UK is not used to such seismic activity - some people in Manchester are going to be worried right now.

• Seismograms
• Map of recent quakes
• Manchester University has excellent maps and information
• Keele University has even more information

Incidentally if you view the map above, you may be interested to learn that I live very close to the red spot that is above and to the left of Blackburn.

A few weeks ago there was a larger quake in Dudley, near Birmingham "which caused minor damage to chimneypots and a church spire". This was at around 1 am. I was in bed - and it's a rare thing thing for me to be asleep so early! My bed was rocking and furniture rattling and they woke me up. Dudley is over 100 miles away!

We are not used to this sort of thing in the UK. At this rate we could beat Los Angeles into the sea!