Thursday, May 29, 2008
Reporting in
Given that we had a bit of a shake earlier on I thought I'd just report in and let you know that I'm still here and still in one piece. :)
The 6.1 quake hit the Reykjavik area at about 15:45 local time. Very shortly thereafter it hit us here in Akureyri, about 140 miles to the north east. There was the rumbling sound I've come to associate with quakes - very much like an extremely heavy lorry driving by outside - and the appartment shook for a couple of seconds. It was certainly the strongest quake I've felt out here, probably over a 4 in the local area. There have been about a dozen aftershocks of 3 or more since the main quake but I haven't felt any of them this far away. What was particularly interesting was that as the quake hit I knew it wasn't a local quake. These come from the region to the east and hit the building from the right. This quake hit from behind me, and the difference in direction was quite pronounced.
There's no damage up here - most buildings are built to a minimum 7.5 spec, and I've heard that although nearer Reykjavík there were many cases of things falling off shelves, damage to some older buildings and some injuries but no fatalities. The phone network and internet went down for a few minutes but everything is back to normal now. The Met Office (who deal in weather, sea ice, volcanoes and earthquakes) have announced that there aren't likely to be any volcanic consequences as the quake was on one of the continental rift area rather than being in an active volcanic region (there is a difference). You can see all of the recent activity on their website - quakes within the last 4 hours are red, 4 to 8 hours are yellow and so on, and big green stars are for quakes larger than magnitude 3. I live in the section at the top with the four blue and yellow dots, so you can see it's quite quiet in my area.
So it was all very exciting, and a couple of other shire members and I went out for a post-earthquake celebratory ice-cream. It will be the talk of the nation for at least the next three weeks. Personally, though, I'm holding out for a decent volcanic eruption. :)
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The 6.1 quake hit the Reykjavik area at about 15:45 local time. Very shortly thereafter it hit us here in Akureyri, about 140 miles to the north east. There was the rumbling sound I've come to associate with quakes - very much like an extremely heavy lorry driving by outside - and the appartment shook for a couple of seconds. It was certainly the strongest quake I've felt out here, probably over a 4 in the local area. There have been about a dozen aftershocks of 3 or more since the main quake but I haven't felt any of them this far away. What was particularly interesting was that as the quake hit I knew it wasn't a local quake. These come from the region to the east and hit the building from the right. This quake hit from behind me, and the difference in direction was quite pronounced.
There's no damage up here - most buildings are built to a minimum 7.5 spec, and I've heard that although nearer Reykjavík there were many cases of things falling off shelves, damage to some older buildings and some injuries but no fatalities. The phone network and internet went down for a few minutes but everything is back to normal now. The Met Office (who deal in weather, sea ice, volcanoes and earthquakes) have announced that there aren't likely to be any volcanic consequences as the quake was on one of the continental rift area rather than being in an active volcanic region (there is a difference). You can see all of the recent activity on their website - quakes within the last 4 hours are red, 4 to 8 hours are yellow and so on, and big green stars are for quakes larger than magnitude 3. I live in the section at the top with the four blue and yellow dots, so you can see it's quite quiet in my area.
So it was all very exciting, and a couple of other shire members and I went out for a post-earthquake celebratory ice-cream. It will be the talk of the nation for at least the next three weeks. Personally, though, I'm holding out for a decent volcanic eruption. :)
Labels: earthquakes
3 comments