An earthquake with a magnitude of at least 4.3 has shaken southern England.

The quake struck at 8.18am, with the British Geological Survey placing the epicentre 7.5 miles off the Dover coast.

The US Geological Survey had put the magnitude at 4.7, while the European monitoring station had said it measured 5.0.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service said it had taken more than 100 emergency calls and was dealing with "several incidents".

Most involved reports of structural damage to buildings.

Chimneys have fallen down while local energy supplier EDF Energy said that thousands of its customers had lost power.

However, supplies have now been restored in the Folkestone and Dover areas.

One woman in her 30s was taken to hospital with minor head and neck injuries.

More than 100 people who fled their homes were comforted by the Salvation Army with shelter and refreshments at a church in Folkestone.

Salvation Army minister said: "There was a lot of activity in the Canterbury Road area, which happens to be where the Salvation Army church is.

"A lot of people had been directed here by the emergency services.

"Personnel were on the scene providing refreshments and emotional support. A lot of people were upset and confused, but there was no serious trauma."

It is understood householders felt the tremor as far afield as East Sussex, Essex and Suffolk.

Eurostar said that the tremor had not affected services across the Channel.

Kent police have advised people to stay indoors unless they have structural damage to their homes.

People are urged to contact authorities if they can smell gas.

Residents said when they heard the initial bang they feared an explosion at the Dungeness nuclear power facility.

There have been reports of mild aftershocks since the quake.

Peter Gilroy, chief executive of Kent County Council, told Sky News: "I'm very satisfied that the emergency service response was absolutely first rate.

"Lots of people are frightened and they feel it's very chaotic in the early stages of the incident."

Mr Gilroy said building engineers from across the county will be "systematically checking" properties in affected areas for structural damage.

He said this process will take weeks rather than days.

Oh dear. o.o Glad there was minimal injuries and noone was severely hurt.

And how is this news?

I'm being honest here.

We had one down here about thirteen years ago when you could see things moving. It's frightening when you're not used to it. We didn't feel this one but I'm probably too far away. Glad no one was badly hurt.

It's news because we don't really have earthquakes in Britain. So it's news to us, even if it isn't to you.The one time I visited the UK, there was rioting in Trafalgar Square the day before I arrived, a 4-point-something earthquake a few hours before my plane landed, and snow in April on my first full day in London.

Everyone was very nice and said it was really nothing to do with me at all - there was even a very polite little cover story about the riots having to do with a newly imposed Poll Tax, rather than my imminent visit - but one can hardly help noticing that one hasn't been asked back ;)


- Calamity Evelyn


PS. Even what USians, especially Californians, would consider a small earthquake Richter Scale-wise can cause lots of damage in areas unused to earthquakes.

Anything in Southern CA that could be shaken down by a 5 on the Righter scale has been long since, but England is a haven for unreinforced masonry and other earthquake-prone structures.
Or, at least, it was until this morning.

Evelyn, Come back! We need a little disaster to brighten up our boring ol' lives! xD

Evelyn, Come back! We need a little disaster to brighten up our boring ol' lives! xDAw, thanks, Alice! :) :) :)
(I sure would if I had the money for it :)

This is perhaps the worst disaster I caused while I was there:

I'd gone to London on business (yeah, well, someone had to do it :), and was there for two weeks. John, the head of the place I was visiting for work, was concerned about my being at loose ends over that weekend, and very kindly offered to show me around the area where he lived in Kent, and to have dinner with his family afterwards.

On the Sunday, I took the train out to meet John and his wife Marie, and we were off to see Kent. John asked if there was anything in particular I'd like to see, and I said "Um, there wouldn't happen to be any castles nearby, would there?"

Well, it turns out that Kent is pretty well lousy with castles, and we saw a couple from the grounds (they looked just like the pictures of castles in books, or in the movies! - except for really real and everything! :), but the one we wound up touring was a fortified 16th C. manor house called Ightam Mote.

It sits in its own artificial lake (the "mote") and has a drawbridge and everything, so it was close enough to a castle for me. No turrets, and it wasn't made of stone, but - get this - the half-timbering was real, not just a cheap fascia!

I was in goggly-eyed tourist heaven :)

It's a National Trust property, and so John just showed his National Trust card, and we were let in without any of the taint of money changing hands :)

We entered the house over the drawbridge, went though the courtyard, and saw the Hall and the solar and the 18th C. drawing room - all sorts of wonderful castle-ey stuff.


The trouble came in the chapel.

It looked mostly like a normal chapel, with stained-glass windows and rows of pews and a pulpit and so on. But there were all these other pews up behind the rail, between the pulpit and the head of the chapel, and edged in all kinds of angles, so they wouldn't be right for a choir loft.

Our National Trust Guide for that part of the tour was a very august old gentleman, just the kind of person that one might expect as a National Trust Guide. I politely asked him what all the pews up there behind the pulpit were for.

"Oh, that would be where the family, and any guests that they had, would sit."

"But then, what are all those rows of pews facing the pulpit for?"

"Oh, those would be for the servants, and any travelers being sheltered for the night, and so on."

I was beginning to get that this was a class distinction sort of thing, but that was something that life in the US really hadn't prepared me for, so I needed to put a clarifying question.

Gesturing broadly at the rows of pews below the pulpit, I started "So these were for all the - "

I was twenty-eight years old, and I had never before needed a collective noun for "people of no particular distinction." I hadn't quite realized that until I was already well into the question, and so I grabbed for and used the first such word I could think of:

"- Riffraff?"


...I think I know exactly how a very august old gentleman from the National Trust would look if he were to swallow a large and rather buzzy fly while suddenly sinking through the floor, because that is just how our poor National Trust Guide looked.

John was standing just behind the Guide, and his expression of shocked delight relieved my worries about all the time and bother he was spending on me: he looked as if I'd just paid him back a thousandfold. Marie was standing next to me, and so she had to keep a straight face for the poor Guide - she later claimed she will never forgive John that he didn't have to.

Embarrassment and apologies and restatements were quickly handed round amongst all four of us, and we left not too long after that.


I believe that John and Marie are still dining out on that story - I know I am :)

But I'm not sure how much more of me the old foundations of All That Is British could take :) :) :)


- Evelyn, who never did get much of the hang of that class distinction thing :)

i didn't know that we get earth quakes. i never heard anything about it me, but i live up North. was it a big one, i have no idea how the richter scale works really, i just know that 10 is the highest, i think, haha.

Heather

Evelyn, Haha I wish I could have seen his face. xD

thanks for the help Banzai :D
Heather