A 3.3-magnitude earthquake rattled homes in north-west England on Wednesday night, the British Geological Survey (BGS) reported.
The tremor, which struck shortly after 23:23, was felt across Lancashire and the southern Lake District, including the towns of Kendal and Ulverston, within 12 miles of the epicentre which is believed to be Silverdale in Lancaster in Lancashire.
Katrina Simmons, who lives in Carnforth in Lancaster, 4.8 miles (7.7km) from the suspected epicentre said she got “a hell of a scare” when she was woken in the middle of the night by the tremors.
“The shaking woke me up, I thought someone had driven into the house,” Katrina Simmons said.
“It was about 25 to 12 and I jumped straight out of bed. I live on my own so it gave me a hell of a scare,” the shop assistant at Spar on Highfield Road added.
“It was only when I went on Facebook this morning I realised it was an earthquake.
“A customer this morning said all the emergency services were on standby at Aldi, at that time they thought it might have been an explosion. Someone said they could hear a helicopter circling.”
The shop’s relief manager Clare Hailes, who lives in North Lancaster, said the force of the tremor set the shop’s alarm off.
“I know the general manager got a call in the middle of the night because it set the alarms off.
“Customers have been talking about it all morning. They thought a lorry had crashed into a building or there had been a quarry explosion. No one was expecting it to be an earthquake.”
The quake occurred just off the coast of Silverdale, Lancashire at a depth of 1.86 miles, data suggested. There were no immediate reports of damage.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service said “many residents felt or heard a loud bang” in the area of Carnforth, 18 miles north of Lancaster.
Lancaster police also said it had received reports of a “loud explosion” in the area.
The force said there had been a “minor earthquake in the area, near to the Lancashire and Cumbria border, measuring 3.3 magnitude”.
It added: “There have been no reports of anyone injured or damage caused but we have officers in the area, together with colleagues from the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service and the North West Ambulance Service.”
The Volcano Discovery website said it had received more than 1,000 reports about the earthquake, with some as far away as Blackpool.
One Carnforth resident posted on the site: “Heard a rumbling sound which intensified in to a loud bang. Thought my roof was collapsing or something! Very scary.”
Another, in Silverdale, posted: “Loud rumble and rattling of fixtures in house, as though something had collapsed or the chimney had fallen off. Significant enough to go outside to check.”
BGS detects about 300 earthquakes every year in the UK, but only about a tenth of these are felt or heard by people.
