A small earth tremor briefly rumbled underneath the Bristol Channel on Thursday evening (November 30th).
The British Geological Survey – a group which monitors UK earthquakes – confirmed that a small quake measuring 1.6 on the Richter Scale had occurred at 9.51pm, some 6.2km below the earth’s surface off the coast of south Wales.
It is the second tremor in the region this year. Burnham-On-Sea.com reported in September how a similar quake measuring 1.9 on the Richter Scale occurred on August 14th when a Burnham resident claimed to have felt it.
David Galloway, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We frequently see tremors in the UK occurring at up to 25 kilometres beneath the surface. Most are very small in terms of worldwide earthquakes and go completely unnoticed.”
Other tremors have occurred in our area in recent years. A series of four, measuring up to 3.1 on the Richter Scale, occurred on 29th January 2004 and were centred on North Petherton. They caused the ground to briefly shake in Taunton and Bridgwater.
The largest tremor in recent times measured 3.8 and rumbled under Penzance in 1996. It was felt throughout Devon and Cornwall.
Our photo shows a view of The Bristol Channel from Brean Down Fort.
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Small earthquake was felt in Burnham-On-Sea
