Staffordshire hit by 3.3 magnitude earthquake as residents hear ‘rumbling’ and houses ‘shake’ and ‘rattle’

A 3.3 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Staffordshire on Wednesday (28 June), the largest to hit the UK in the last two months.

Residents reported hearing a “rumbling” sound and described feeling their houses shake, as windows and doors rattled.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) confirmed the tremor, which had an epicentre 7.3km (4.5 miles) below the village of Tean.

BGS had received reports from around the Staffordshire area on Wednesday night, mainly from within 20km (12.5 miles) of the epicentre, describing “an initial rumbling, then a bang” with what “felt more like a shunt, like something had hit something”.

Mark Begg, 30, told the PA news agency he was at home in Uttoxeter when he felt “a very large shake”. He said he checked “around the house to see if I could see anything” and after noticing no signs of damage, “concluded it was most likely a mini earthquake”.

Local resident Tom, 38, in Cheadle, Staffordshire, said: “I was sitting watching an episode of Only Connect with my wife on YouTube and as we opened another bottle of wine the whole house shook. I thought either one of the children had fallen out of bed or something else had happened.”

Another local described seeing their desk shaking during the earthquake at around 8.20pm.

One resident in Stoke posted on Twitter: “Was using my computer and heard a tiny rumble sound that got bigger and a sudden skating under my feet. Its either an earthquake or huge explosion. It felt like a small quake.”

The tremor could also be felt in Walsall, Derby, Stafford, Wolverhampton and Lichfield.

The earthquake comes after two 1.8 magnitude tremors were felt on the Isle of Mull back in May. But they both fall short of the record earthquake in the UK, which the BGS records as a 6.1 magnitude tremor in the North Sea, about 75 miles north east of Great Yarmouth on 7 June 1931.

Filey felt the strongest effects of that earthquake with a church spire rotated while Surrey, Norway, Denmark and Germany were also impacted.

The BGS says it detects and locates between 200 and 300 earthquakes in the UK each year.

Between 20 to 30 earthquakes a year are felt by people while other tremors are only recorded by sensitive instruments.