Earthquake: England is shaken awake at 1am

England was shaken by an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter Scale early this morning.There were no initial reports of significant damage and nobody is believed to have been injured in the quake just before 1am but the measurement makes it the second largest quake to hit the UK in the last decade.People around the country reported feeling tremors for around five seconds, but those in Lincolnshire said they felt rumblings for up to 20 seconds.The US Geographical Survey's website said the epicentre was 30 miles south of Hull, but they had reports from Manchester and Liverpool in the north, Norfolk in the east, London and the Home counties in the south, and all over the Midlands.A spokesman for The Met Office said: "We have been getting calls from all over the country. It appears to have affected all of England." The tremor is believed to have lasted around six seconds.Sylvia Tidy-Harris, from Ellistown, Leicestershire said: "It was like a big juggernaut was coming down the road. It was very loud and the whole house shook."Sarah Milligan, from Stockport, is four months pregnant and was thrown to the floor by the tremor. "The whole house was shaking so I stood up off the sofa trying to see what happened. My legs gave way."I've had to go to hospital to make sure the baby is okay."Jamie Rolls, 38, of Colchester, said: "It was the strangest thing I've ever felt. The whole room was moving and I looked down to a glass of Coke on the table and it started bubbling up. The whole tremor lasted about 20 seconds in two separate waves." Chris Wallwork, 58, was sitting at his computer in the upstairs study of his 18th-century cottage in Eaton Bray near Dunstable, Beds, when he felt it begin to sway. "It was really weird. I felt the cottage sway very slowly three or four times."Kultaran Singh, from Derby, said: "I was woken up in the middle of deep sleep. I thought I was going to slide off the bed, which was shaking along with the walls and all the furniture."I thought at first that part of my house had collapsed. But the whole thing only lasted about five minutes, and I couldn't believe there was no damage given how strong the tremor felt."Between 200 and 300 earthquakes are detected and located in the UK every year by the British Geological Survey. But only a few of these are actually felt by people without specialist equipment.Buildings are deemed to be at risk from earthquakes above 5 on the Richter Scale, according to the Environment Agency.Last April, more than 70 homes were cordoned off near Folkestone in Kent following a tremor of 4.3 at around 8.20am. the biggest earthquake to hit Britain in five years.The largest earthquake recorded in the UK was about 75 miles north-east of Great Yarmouth in the North Sea on 7 June, 1931. It measured 6.1 and was felt across Britain, in eastern Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Germany, France, Norway and Denmark.

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As in the days of Noah....