Residents were shaken by what felt like an “underground explosion” after England’s biggest earthquake in two years affected towns and villages across Lancashire and Cumbria.
A 3.3-magnitude earthquake was felt as far as 12 miles from the epicentre near the coastal village of Silverdale in Lancashire shortly after 11.23pm on Wednesday.
People across the region said their houses had shaken, with one saying they felt the area “had been bombed”.
The British Geographical Survey (BGS) confirmed that it was the strongest earthquake in England since another magnitude 3.3 event in Staffordshire in 2023.
Earthquakes of such a magnitude are relatively rare in the UK. Only a tenth of the 200 to 300 seismic incidents reported every year are strong enough for people to feel them, the BGS said.
A spokesperson said there were two or three earthquakes of similar magnitude in the UK every year, but Wednesday’s event appears to be the strongest in north-west England since a magnitude 3.7 tremor shook Morecambe Bay in 2009.
Residents posted online that it “felt like an underground explosion” and was “so powerful it shook the whole house”.
The Volcano Discovery website, which also collects information on earthquakes, received more than 1,100 reports from people in the area.
Most reports detailed “light” or “weak” disturbance. People in Carnforth, about five miles south of the epicentre, described feeling their homes shake.
Sarah, the landlord of a local pub, said the quake made glasses behind the bar to shake.“Luckily nothing got broken but it was so strange,” she said. “I’ve never felt anything like it, but there wasn’t any real damage on our end.”
One resident posted online that she felt the town “had just been bombed”, while another said they initially suspected an explosion at the nearby Heysham nuclear power station in Morecambe.
The most recent earthquake measuring more than 3.3 magnitude was felt in parts of Perth and Kinross in Scotland on 20 October. The BGS said it had struck at 7.25am with its epicentre in Pubil in the Glen Lyon region.
