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Householders face hefty bills for earthquake damage
Insurance companies are bracing themselves for a deluge of claims after the biggest earthquake to hit the UK in nearly 25 years.
Thousands of people were shaken awake when the tremor struck just before 1am yesterday and damage was caused to hundreds of homes and businesses.
Insurers estimate that the damage caused by the quake, measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale, may mean them paying out "tens of millions of pounds".
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The Association of British Insurers (ABI) based its assessment on figures for a smaller earthquake in Folkestone, Kent, in April 2007 which resulted in claims totalling 15 million.
The only reported injury was to student David Bates, 19, who suffered a suspected broken pelvis when a chunk of masonry from a chimney stack crashed into his bedroom.
The keen amateur footballer was watching TV in bed at his home in Barnsley Road, Wombwell, South Yorkshire, when the earthquake struck.
He was taken to Barnsley Hospital and told staff he was worried about missing important Barnsley FC matches.
His father, Paul Bates said: "Of all the things that can happen - an earthquake.
"I could not believe it but, when I think about it, it could have been worse."
The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the quake hit at 12.56am and its epicentre was just north of Market Rasen in Lincolnshire.
BGS seismologist Brian Baptie said it was "a significant earthquake for the UK".
Market Rasen was largely unscathed although more than 10,000 of damage was caused to St Thomas's Church when a stone cross smashed to the ground.
The vicar, the Rev Michael Cartwright, said he was confident the medieval church was insured against "acts of God".
The sudden noise and shaking frightened many residents in the town.
Mother-of-two Eleanor Ramsey, 31, said: "I was scared to death. The whole house was shaking.
"It felt like a bomb had gone off. I woke up screaming and my son was screaming, so we got the children in bed with us.
"I have never been so scared in my life."
Pensioner Marie Milne added: "I nearly fell out of the bed. I was holding on to the sheets."
Other residents did not even feel the quake.
"It would take more than 5.2 on the Richter scale to wake me up," said Market Rasen resident Laura Robinson, 22.
Elsewhere around the country, chimneys fell down, roof tiles were dislodged and parts of garden walls collapsed.
The worst-hit areas were around Lincolnshire and Humberside, but people as far away as Bristol and London also reported their homes suddenly shaking.
Mark Shone, a 29-year-old public relations officer from Chester, said: "It frightened me to death. We live right by a train track and I thought 'Blimey, that's a bit late for a train' and then my water glass rattled right across the bedside table.
"My partner is down in London at the moment, staying in Canary Wharf, and he said he thought a bomb had gone off."
The BGS records around 200 earthquakes in the UK each year, some 25 of which can be felt by people.
Yesterday's tremor was the largest since 1984, when an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale shook the Lleyn Peninsula of North Wales and was widely felt across England and Wales.
The tremor was a million times weaker than the massive disturbance which triggered the devastating 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
But experts said the British earthquake posed more of a geological mystery.
Possible causes include a re-awakened ancient fault zone, accumulating mud beneath the North Sea and the aftermath of the last Ice Age.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
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