A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck Bristol at 8 pm Indian Standard Time (IST) on Saturday, 17 February. Twitter was abuzz…
(Photo: Screenshot/ Earthquake.usgs.gov)
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck Bristol at 8 pm Indian Standard Time (IST) on Saturday, 17 February. Twitter was abuzz with people tweeting about the “ground move” and “buildings shaking” in the region in southwest England.
Reports said that a football match was stopped midway as tremors were felt. People in the UK, however, reacted with surprise.
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Earthquake in #Bristol?
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— Haden (@ThisIsHaden) February 17, 2018
Looks like we had an earthquake in the UK today, very rare. Cardiff, Bristol, Weston Super Mare all reporting large tremours.
— Redeye (@PaulChaloner) February 17, 2018
According to US Geological Survey, the earthquake was of magnitude 4.2. It struck 3km northeast of Clydach in Swansea. The tremors were felt across south Wales and as far as Oxford and Lancashire.
If confirmed at magnitude 4.9, it would be the highest since 2008 when a magnitude 5.2 earthquake jolted Lancashire in England.
Earthquakes of more than magnitude 5 are very rare across the British Isles. According to magnitude damage scale, only earthquakes of magnitude 6.1 and above have the potential to cause major damage in populated areas.
Yet there was reason for alarm because of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck the Pacific Coast in the south of Mexico shaking buildings for over two minutes in Mexico City, over 350 kilometres away.
The quake didn’t result in deaths but two people on the ground died after a chopper carrying Mexico’s interior minister, Alfonso Navarrete Prida, and the governor of the state of Oaxaca crashed near the quake’s epicentre.
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