Shropshire hit by UK’S biggest earthquake for four years

THE strongest earthquake to hit the UK in almost four years struck a Shropshire village yesterday.

The 3.8 magnitude tremor, the biggest to hit Britain since June 2018, rocked houses “from side to side”, frightening residents.

The earthquake centred close to Wem, north of Shrewsbury, but residents in neighbouring Staffordshire and Cheshire also reported feeling its effects, including buildings shaking and windows rattling.

Brian Shuttleworth, 38, a company boss from Telford, said: “I was having an afternoon nap after working throughout the night and then I felt the bed moving. It was surreal.

“My doors slammed shut and when I stood up I could feel the ground beneath me shaking. It only lasted seconds but it felt like an eternity. It was very frightening.

“I thought the noise was a car crash at first but then I felt everything shaking and knew it must be an earthquake. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Julie Williams, of Wem, told the BBC that she was “shocked” by the quake.

“I knew straight away what it was, I was just like, get downstairs and get out,” she said. “My legs went to jelly.”

The British Geological Survey (BGS), which collects data on people’s experiences of earthquakes, said one person said their “house felt like it moved from left to right”.

The UK experiences more than 200 earthquakes each year on average.

A spokesman for the BGS said the earthquake was detected at 3.47pm.

He added: “We have received a number of reports that it was felt by people in the region. An earthquake of this size can result in strong shaking within about 10 kilometres of the epicentre, but damage is unlikely. The earthquake may have been felt at distances as far as 100 kilometres away.

“There is an earthquake of this size, or greater, roughly every two years on average somewhere in the UK. The last earthquake of this magnitude (3.8 ML) was near Grimsby on June 9 2018.”