People reported hearing rumbling sounds and big bangs when an earthquake struck near Mull – four earthquakes have been recorded by the British Geological Society over the last week
Big bangs, rumbling and the sounds of a tank were heard by stunned Scots. No, Mad Vlad hasn’t aimed his artillery at Aberdeen, but an earthquake has been felt in Mull.
“The ground and the wall I was leaning against shook for about three seconds,” one person said according to reports cited by the British Geological Society, which recorded four earthquakes over the last week.
Another person said they thought it was a “tank passing the house”, while another said there was a “very loud bang and rumbling”.
The British Geological Society said the 2.9 magnitude quake was at a depth of just over eight miles and took place at around 8:45pm on Sunday, January 5.
The shaking was felt by people in “Oban, Strontian, Mull and in surrounding villages in the region” and could be felt around 31 miles from the epicentre in Kinloch.
B&B owner Mary MacPhail told the BBC she was enjoying Sunday dinner when she heard a “rumbling” sound.
She said: “I initially thought it was maybe a plane going over. We do get low flying planes sometimes… The house didn’t shake, it was just a noise – a very loud rumbling.”
It was one of four recorded over the last week. With others including a 1.5 magnitude quake at a depth of just 2.4 miles in Greatgate, Staffordshire on January 4.
On January 2, there was a tiny 0.4 magnitude quake at a depth of 3.7 miles in Bute, Scotland and also a 0.7 magnitude tremor at a depth of just under five miles in Melbourne, Derbyshire on New Year’s Day.
It comes as a deadly reminder of the destructive power of earthquakes was felt today. A strong earthquake shook a high-altitude region of western China and areas of Nepal on Tuesday, damaging hundreds of houses, littering streets with rubble and killing at least 126 people in Tibet.
Many others were trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the remote region.
Rescue workers climbed mounds of broken bricks, some using ladders in heavily damaged villages, as they searched for survivors. Videos posted by China’s Ministry of Emergency Management showed two people being carried on stretchers by workers treading over the debris from collapsed homes.
At least 188 people were injured in Tibet on the Chinese side of the border, the official Xinhua News Agency said. More than 1,000 homes were damaged in the barren and sparsely populated region, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured magnitude 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about 10 kilometres (six miles). China’s Earthquake Networks Centre recorded the magnitude as 6.8. Shallow earthquakes often cause more damage.
The epicentre was in Tibet’s Tingri county, where the India and Eurasia plates grind against each other and can cause earthquakes strong enough to change the heights of some of the world’s tallest peaks in the Himalayan mountains.
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