The Daily Telegraph
London, Feb 27: The largest earthquake to hit Britain for almost quarter of a century was felt across large parts of England in the early hours on Wednesday morning.
Tremors were felt in areas including Merseyside, Birmingham, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Northampton, Norfolk, Surrey and Greater London - including the offices of Telegraph.co.uk, near Victoria Station. The five-second tremor struck at 00.55am.
Its epicentre of the "significant" quake was 15 miles north of Lincoln, near Market Rasen, and the British Geological Survey (BGS) reported the earthquake as measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale - the largest in Britain since 1984.
A spokeswoman for Lincolnshire Police said they had received dozens of phone calls about the tremor and some damage to homes had been reported. Emergency services across England were inundated with thousands of calls following the incident, many from people who were frightened when they were woken up to find their home shaking.
North Yorkshire Police received nearly 700 calls, West Yorkshire Police received around 400 calls and Warwickshire Police received more than 250 calls between 1am and 1.30am.
Most callers were concerned about the quake and "seeking reassurance", but a number of people thought their property was being broken into, because of the noise generated by the tremor.
One man was injured in the quake. David Bates, 19, was hurt when a chimney smashed through the roof of his bedroom in the South Yorkshire village of Wombwell. He was trapped in bed by the fallen masonry. He has been taken to hospital and is due to have an operation on his pelvis.
The quake may have been felt as far north as Dumfries in Scotland. A spokeswoman for Dumfries and Galloway Police said: "A lady called in during the night and said she had felt a very slight tremor. "She wondered if there was something going on."
Ian Gilmore, 63, from Rainford near St Helens on Merseyside was watching a film when he felt the tremor. His wife Patricia was also woken up and rushed downstairs to see what had happened.
Gilmore said: "It was incredible - I have never felt anything like it." A resident in Norfolk described it as "a real mover and shaker". She said: "It was like a big juggernaut coming down the road the whole house shook - it was a real bone shaker"
Richard Sprakes of Thorne in South Yorkshire was asleep when the tremor shook his house and woke him up. "It was pretty scary I can tell you. Stuff was falling off the shelves. It was pretty rough."
Other witnesses reported that wildlife - birds and pets- became highly agitated as the ground shook. David Cannon in north Suffolk, meanwhile, said that he felt a "four-second rumble, like a train going under the house". The earthquake was the largest since 1984, when north Wales was hit by a tremor of magnitude 5.4 on the Richter scale.
The largest this century came when the West Midlands was hit by an earthquake in 2002 in the Dudley area that reached 5.0 on the Richter scale and caused damage to homes.
Homeowners should be covered for the cost of any damage caused by the earthquake, insurers have said. Malcolm Tarling, spokesman for the Association of British Insurers, said: "It is a pretty scary event but will not be a major incident for insurers. "Damage appears to be limited at this stage."
The BGS said it records around 200 earthquakes in the UK each year - an eighth of which can be felt by residents. It said earthquakes of this size occur in the mainland UK around every 30 years but are more common in offshore areas.