Rural Welsh village is hit with an EARTHQUAKE, marking the third in Wales this year – as shaken residents say tremors sounded like ‘thunder with a bang’
Residents of a rural village in Wales were in for a rude awakening when Wales was hit by its third earthquake this year.
The epicenter of the earthquake was in the village of Capel Carmel in Gwynedd, North Wales, and its magnitude reached 1.8 on the Richter scale.
According to the British Geological Survey, the earthquake occurred at 3:43 a.m. on December 20 at a depth of 11.8 miles (19 km).
Panicked residents said the tremors sounded like “thunder with a boom.”
The earthquake was strong enough that it was felt two miles away in the village of Redelius.
The epicenter of the earthquake was in the village of Capel Carmel in Gwynedd, North Wales, and its magnitude reached 1.8 on the Richter scale.
Capel Carmel residents, shown here, say the quake sounded like “thunder with a boom.”
Residents said, in a local Facebook group, that the earthquake “is not like past earthquakes.”
They added that the shaking “sounded like it was in the sky.”
Even in the nearby village of Ridelius, one resident reported that “their house shook and shook like a rumble of thunder.”
According to data collected by the British Geological Survey, this is the third earthquake to trouble Wales this year.
Last October, an earthquake measuring 1.3 on the Richter scale shook the village of Llanvigil on the nearby island of Anglesey.
Seismometers operated by the British Geographic Survey recorded the tremors that shook the region. The blue spikes in this graph show the movement of the Earth
On 24 February, a larger earthquake occurred just three miles north of Merthyr Tydfil in the Rhondda Valley, south Wales.
In the middle of the night, an earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale struck the residents, who found their entire house shaking.
This earthquake was so strong that local residents reported that they believed an explosion had occurred.
A resident near the epicenter said the quake was so noticeable that “it felt like the ceiling was falling.”
There was also another, smaller earthquake at 10:08 a.m. on February 4.
This was picked up by seismometers at a depth of eight miles (13 km) with a magnitude of just 0.9 on the Richter scale.
The coastal area of Gwynedd, pictured here, is no stranger to earthquakes, with a 1.3-magnitude earthquake hitting the nearby island of Anglesey.
The Richter scale measures the energy generated by earthquakes.
While the scale has no upper end, the most destructive tremors reach levels of over eight and the strongest tremors ever recorded reach magnitudes of 9.4-9.6.
Every year, millions of tremors with a magnitude of less than 2.5 on the Richter scale occur, although they are usually not felt.
This latest earthquake comes after an unusually active year of tremors in Britain, including a 1.5 magnitude earthquake in Cornwall and a 3.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Great Yarmouth.
Residents also reported “roaring” after a 3.3 magnitude earthquake struck Staffordshire in March.
Wales wasn't the only place affected by earthquakes this year, with major tremors hitting parts of the UK from Blackpool to Essex.
The UK actually experiences around 200 to 400 earthquakes every year. On this map, every earthquake from 2000 to 2020 is shown with a red circle, the size of which indicates its magnitude.
Earthquakes occur when tectonic plates in the Earth's crust move against each other.
When the plates move in the opposite direction, they stick and then suddenly slide, releasing huge amounts of energy.
The areas where earthquakes most commonly occur are located above where plates actually meet, called fault lines.
These fault lines are also often sites of exceptionally high volcanic activity as magma works its way through gaps in the Earth's crust.
The UK lies on a tectonic plate called the Eurasian Plate, but the UK's closest plate boundary, the Mid-Atlantic, is about 1,000 miles away.
However, tremors can still occur even in the middle of tectonic plates, and the UK experiences between 200 and 300 tremors every year.
Most are too small to be noticed and only about 20 to 30 of them can be felt in any given year.
According to the British Geological Survey, a magnitude 4 earthquake occurs approximately every two years, while a magnitude 5 earthquake occurs only every 10 to 20 times.
Research suggests that the largest earthquake that could theoretically hit the UK would have a magnitude of around 6.5.
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