There were 1,712 earthquakes worldwide in 2023 with a Magnitude of five or more and more than 64,100 people were killed, the highest death toll since 2010. 2024 opened ominously with the Sea of Japan Earthquake which struck seven kilometres north-northwest of Suzu on the Noto peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture on New Year’s Day registering a magnitude of 7.6.

Britain is far enough from the Earth’s fault lines to make an earthquakes one of the least of the potential natural disasters to worry about, but they do occur, a total of 13 earthquakes with a magnitude of four or over have struck within 300 kilometres of the United Kingdom in the last ten years, an average of just over one a year, and there are many more small tremors, between twenty and thirty per annum, that can be felt in parts of Britain.

The largest known earthquake to have struck the UK occurred on June 7, 1931 with a magnitude of 6.1ML, its epicentre located offshore in the Dogger Bank area, approximately 120km northeast of Great Yarmouth. It was felt by most of Great Britain where damage was reported in 71 areas as well as in the east of Ireland, northern France, northwest Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and southwest Norway.

How likely is an earthquake which strikes Britain or occurs close to Britain likely to kill one of us? The answer is provided by a fascinating article published on February 1, 2003, in Astronomy and Geophysics. After trawling through the historical records, starting from the first recorded instance of an earthquake in Britain in 974AD, R M W Musson, the author, concluded that “only twelve fatalities can be traced with any certainty. Of these, only ten were directly due to the earthquake, six of these due to people being hit by falling stones or rock and four due to building damage. Of these four, in the case of two it is not even certain that the building collapse was due to the earthquake”.

Musson also states that “there is a lack of correlation between earthquake magnitude and earthquake casualties in the UK; this is in accord with general observations in earthquake epidemiology” To illustrate his point, the Dogger Bank earthquake only caused one fatality, an elderly lady from Hull, Mrs Ellen Bradley, who was “apparently unnerved as a result of the shakes” and died the following day. As its epicentre was out at sea, the impact on the mainland was not as great as it could be.  

My mind has been put to rest but I will keep checking that list of earthquakes. It is quite addictive.