Don’t panic – our quakes are comparative ‘burps’ says window cleaner: A South Cumbrian councillor has dismissed four earth tremors felt in parts of the county in three years as nothing more than “burps”. Councillor Brendan Jameson – a Liberal Democrat member of Cumbria County Council and leader of South Lakeland District Council – is a keen amateur geologist who has studied seismology and the tectonic plates under the earth which cause quakes when they move, on an Open University course. An earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale struck North Yorkshire on Monday night at 9pm and was felt in some parts of Cumbria, with people in Kendal calling the police. It came two weeks after the 3.5 scale Coniston earthquake on December 21, which was felt all over South and West Cumbria.
But Cllr Jameson, who runs a window cleaning business and who lives in Kendal, did not feel anything and does not think the county council should take any special earthquake planning measures. Cllr Jameson said: “I don’t think there is anything sinister going on. There has been very little movement of the Eurasian tectonic plate which we are on.” He said of the four quakes in three years, which included one centred near Ulverston in 2009 and a 5.7 one in Lincolnshire in 2008, which was felt in areas like Barrow: “These are hiccups. I honestly don’t think there is anything to worry about. I think seismologists would have flagged up a warning if there was.” Cllr Jameson said he believed there was more chance of getting run over by a bus than the area suffering a serious earthquake and compared the earth tremors to “burps” compared with major earthquake areas of the world.
Another county councillor, Tory Bill Wearing, who represents Grange, said flooding was a much more worrying issue in Cumbria. Cllr Wearing said: “Personally, I don’t think it should be anything to worry about but you can never say never in business or in politics so you have to be prepared for everything. You can rest assured that Cumbria is ahead of the game with its emergency planning.” Cllr Wearing, who said the pavements in Grange shook in a quake three years ago, did not feel the Yorkshire one on Monday night. He said: “My wife is from Longridge in Lancashire and they are always having them down there. I just think people are a bit more sensitive about it these days. I don’t think it is anything for people to be worried about to be honest.” He said the county had strategic emergency plans in place with the police for any emergencies.
The pre-Christmas Coniston earthquake was felt 100 kilometres away. Julian Burkits, a seismologist for the British Geological Survey, which constantly monitors for earthquakes, said to have two 3.5 scale quakes in the North within two weeks was a unusual coincidence. But he said Cumbrians had nothing to worry about as nothing significant was going on. He said: “There is absolutely nothing for anyone to worry about. We have earthquakes that size about once a year. The worst that is going to happen is that the monitor of your PC is going to rattle for a few seconds. The most likely thing that will happen is you will get a fright from the noise, which sounds like a low-flying plane or a heavy lorry going down the street.”
He said the world had 14,500 earthquakes of that magnitude a year and in serous earthquake areas, which are near to the edges of tectonic plates, they would be unreported. He said: “A 3.6 earthquake is insignificant. People should just sit back and enjoy it.” The BGS said Britain remained safe from the threat of serious quakes that destroy buildings and lives because it was hundreds of miles from the edge of a tectonic plate. If you felt Monday’s Ripon quake, you can take part in the BGS urvey inquiry into the Ripon quake on its website.
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