I live very close to the epicenter of last nights/this mornings earthquake. I thought experiencing a Hurricane in Greece was scary enough but after our little earthmoving experience early hours I was left waiting for somthing else just as scary to happen. I checked to see if my little boy was ok and he quite calmly said "its an earthquake mum, we dont get many of them in Britain!"

Sue, Harworth ,

i couldent belive it here in bolton i thought it was the end of the world my bed shook thats it

adele, bolton, manchester

It was as if something had lifted us up shook us about then put us back in the same place!
me and my sons checked the house and have noticed a few cracks have appeared in the ceilings!!!
yvonne,gateshead

yvonne waugh, gateshead tyne/wear, england

is our tectonic plate trying to get further away from Europe??

HG, Swindon, Wilts

My husband and I woke at exactly the same time, the first thought that we had was that there was going to be a gas explosion, we jumped out of bed, my husband ran downstairs to check the boiler and I comforted our 6 year old daughter who was asking what the rattling sound was. While the other two children slept we where in bed watching the tv for news of what had taken place, I couldn't get back to sleep for hours as I had been so frightened all the children where very excited this morning especially the one who had been woken up she was delighted the she had been in an earthquake!

kerry, Hull

kerry, hull, humberside

At first I thought it was a ghost in my bedroom as at first only my bedroom door was shaking, a few seconds after my house started to shake really badly and everything which was on my bedside table started moving and my wardrobes did, thats when I realised it was an earthquake. Most the house alarms down and near my street were all set off because it was that bad. As I have never experienced one as strong as this before it did scare and confuse me alot. To check if it was an earthquake I called my boyfriend to see if he had felt it but he was lucky and slept through it and when i told him he did'nt believe me.

Michaela, Hull, England

Yes I too thought I had had a gas/ boiler explosion. You just dont expect this in Hull!!

Sharon, hull, UK

I think it's because God's angry with Gordon Brown not giving us a referendum

John Ledbury, Kings Lynn, England

kayleigh from hull
i thought my boiler was coming through the ceiling i was so scared i picked my daughter out of her cot and ran out the room b ecause i didn't know what was happening

kayleigh, hull,

In the past ten years there has been an exponential melting of the ice sheets and a noticeable disintegration of the ice shelves, owing to 'global warming'. The loss of mass from the underlying Tectonics Plates causes them to ascend (iso-static rebound), and this results in an increase in the intensification and frequency of global seismological activity. The seismic data of the past ten years confirm this conjecture. Furthermore, the ice shelves impede the flow of glaciers and ice sheets into to the oceans; and when the 'polar regions' are subjected to unprecedented seismic upheavals, these events will then cause the ice sheets and glaciers to be dislodged en masse into the oceans. This occurrence will then instantly destabilize the earth's surface weight distribution (isostasy), and so precipitate a 'crust displacement' (Mag. 12). i.e., axis change!

John Berbatis, Perth, Australia

It disrupted my studying. I was sitting at my desk preparing myself for another night of reading, when i felt the ground shaking, initially i thought it was the washing machine downstairs, (quite heavily) then i looked behind worried and saw my coat on the door was also moving. Without thinking, I ran down the stairs and screamed for my house mates to get out of the house. Apparently no one on the ground floor felt it, only two of us upstairs. Now its nearly 3 am and im still quite freaked out and hope there will be no aftershocks. Too scared to sleep. No more studying for me tonight...

Khadijat, Birmingham, UK

Large scale theory of friction answers the Earthquake cause.
The stick effect grabs between rocks over miles and the tectonic movement keeps on slowly deforming rocks. In UK the six year cycles seems stable so movement a s steady speed across the boundary.
The rock strength being nearly same and strength stays at the 4-5 region on R scale.
The slip effect causes the release of energy and from potential of deformation.
In most regions long time scales indicate big quakes and 300yr lapses from Portugal and Eire and Scandinavia seem to show big events when slip occurs

Dr MI Barton MA. MBA.PhD, Oxon., uk

It is 2am and I'm still awake having just gone through the 24hr BBC news channel to confirm I felt an earthquake, as I just felt a vibrant shudder in my room which even shook my heavy wardrobe doors. I can probably sleep peacefully now having proven it wasn't some surreal and paranormal activity!

Sharon, Kingston-Upon-Thames, UK