Earthquake hits Northern Wales

29^th May 2013

Molly Kersey

Molly Kersey

29 May 2013

The British Geographical Society (BGS) have confirmed that an earthquake of a 2.3 magnitude took place around the area of Caernarfon, Wales on Thursday.

David Galloway from the BGS reported: “We’ve had about 40 or 50 people contact us last night with comments like ‘the window’s shook, the rumbling seemed to come beneath our feet, it was like a lorry crashing into the house’. It was the sorts of descriptions and reports that you get for an earthquake that size.”

Mr Galloway added: “We record about 150 to 200 earthquakes somewhere in the UK every year. North West Scotland and North Wales are probably the most seismically active out of those areas”.

As well as Caernarfon, the earthquake was also felt in Anglesey, Bangor and Porthmadog. Many people spoke about their experience of the earthquake on social media sites, with one user using Twitter to express their surprise, tweeting: “Just felt an earthquake!!! North Wales.”

Anglesey resident Kevin Clark described being woken by a “deep rumbling sound,” saying: “It felt like a train was running around the outside of the house”. However he added that there was “no damage at all”.

Mr Galloway explained that due to the fact that “we live on a dynamic planet”, Britain will experience minor earthquakes on a regular basis.     

Molly Kersey