Merseyside hit by earthquake tremors

Feb 27 2008

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MERSEYSIDERS were  awoken in their beds when  the biggest earthquake for  25 years shook the country.

People felt their homes shake  for several seconds just before  1am as the tremors registered  5.2 on the Richter scale.

No damage was reported in  Merseyside and nobody is believed to have been injured.

The quake’s epicentre was  near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, but it was felt all over  England.

A man from Barnsley was  hurt when a chimney fell  through his bedroom ceiling.

Pete Price  was 460ft up the Radio City  tower broadcasting live on air  when he felt the tremors.

He said: “It was very scary.  This is the second time it’s happened to me – I’m thinking about packing the job in!

“I was about to do a live link-up with America when it happened and I looked at my producer and we realised it was an earthquake.

“My chair began to shake and I  nearly swore on air. It only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed  to go on for a lifetime.

“You worry about the lifts  and getting out when you’re  that high in the air in a tube.”

“The phones went mad, with one women telling me she had dropped her cup of tea and lots of people saying their pets were getting upset.”

Chris Molloy, 65, from Orrell  Park, said he was chatting on a dating  website to a woman from Nottingham when the earthquake  struck.

He said: “I sent a message to a woman from Nottingham who I was speaking to and We both  said, ‘What’s that?’ I asked her,  ‘Did the earth move for you as  well?’ She said that it had! It  was very strange – I thought they were having a party nextdoor.”

On our web  forums, people reacted in shock  to the sudden earthquake.

Moriarty said: “If you think the earth shook for you at shortly after 0100 hours you were right.

“I was sitting  watching TV when I felt two  bumps, which felt as though  somebody had bumped a car  against the wall behind me.

“I thought I was mistaken,  but I have just heard it on the  news. Must check the house for  cracks tomorrow.”

A spokeswoman for the North  West Ambulance Service said:  “We felt the tremors here in our  control room in Anfield.

“We have had a few of our  vehicles reporting that they felt  the tremors as far as Macclesfield and up towards Southport, but no actual calls from the public.”

Seismologist Dr Brian Baptie  of the BGS said: “This is a significant earthquake for the UK  and will have been widely felt  across England and Wales.”

The quake is the largest since  1984 when an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale  shook the Lleyn Peninsula of  north Wales and was widely felt across England and Wales.