Quake villager thought 'ironing board had fallen over'

A small Lancashire village has experienced its fourth earthquake within six months.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the 2.7 magnitude tremor was felt in Silverdale, Lancaster, at 09:38 BST.

Sarah, who lives in the village, said she thought her "ironing board had fallen over in the airing cupboard" when she felt the vibrations.

Callum Harrison, from the BGS, said there had been 28 recorded tremors centred on the Silverdale area since a 3.2 magnitude earthquake in December. Most of them, he said, had been too small to feel.

Sarah told BBC Radio Lancashire there had been a flurry of messages on their Neighbourhood Watch WhatsApp group.

She said: "Some people said they heard a bang. Other people have said there were real vibrations underneath them in their houses."

Aileen, who lives on the outskirts of the village, said she was about to get up when her wardrobe doors started shaking.

"I thought [my husband] had fallen off the toilet so I [was] shouting to him 'are you all right'?"

She then thought of another possible cause.

"There is a quarry on the outskirts of the village, and we just thought they were blasting."

Harrison said the latest tremors follow the earthquake on 3 December.

"We've recorded about 28 during the course of the last [few] months and these come down to an initial 3.2 magnitude [quake]."

He said most of them had been "too small to feel" but there had been "about five or six that have been felt since then".

"It is a high number for one single area but it's not necessarily something about Silverdale in particular - it's more so this initial magnitude 3.2 event.

"When you have an earthquake it exerts quite a lot of force on the surrounding area/surrounding faults and so for the time being it increases the likelihood that you'll get earthquakes within a certain area and... eventually that the area sort of settles and will return to normal," he said.

Harrison said in areas less prone to earthquakes it can take quite a long time for everything to settle down.

"So this is why we're seeing earthquakes that have been occurring for months since that initial event," he added.

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