Should London be quaking in its boots?

SCIENTISTS have discovered two fault lines running under London that could cause a magnitude 5 earthquake. But before you reach for your hard hat, they estimate there is only a one-in-athousand-year chance of such a tremor.

Researchers from Imperial College pinpointed the two faults moving between 1mm and 2mm a year, one running directly under central London and another under Canary Wharf.

They say the chance of an earthquake is “enough to be scary but not fundamentally a problem”, according to Dr Richard Ghail, a specialist in civil and environmental engineering at Imperial College.

The shaking would be similar to standing on a platform between two passing trains, although there is a remote possibility of a magnitude 6 earthquake, which could cause structural damage.

The last earthquake to hit the capital was in the 1700s, while, in 2008, Market Rasen in Lincolnshire was the epicentre for the UK’S biggest earthquake in 25 years. It registered 5.2 on the Richter scale, with tremors felt from Newcastle in the north to Bangor in Wales and Hampshire in the south, and even in northern France, Holland and Belgium.

The Imperial College findings are being used to draw up seismic guidelines for all new and renovated buildings in London, which will be designed and built over the next 100 years to withstand a 6.5 level earthquake.

Dr Ghail said the research overturned the traditional view of London as geologically stable. “It now looks a modestly active, very heavily faulted, complicated area. It’s probably gone from the simplest to most complex geology in the UK.”

The radar has not only revealed the fault lines but also showed that London and the South East is rising at the rate of 1-2mm a year, as Britain is squeezed by huge tectonic forces.

Africa is moving north westwards as the Atlantic widens, squeezing Britain upwards along its spine from Kent to Scotland.