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Scotland earthquake: Huge tremor shakes homes as locals hear ‘large explosion’
The blast hit islanders hardest but experts have revealed it also struck parts of the mainland
A MASSIVE earthquake has struck parts of Scotland with terrified residents hearing a "loud explosion".
The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the large 3.3 magnitude quake rocked the Isle of Mull around 7.30pm last night.
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It said movement was felt on Mull itself, on surrounding islands and on the mainland, mainly from within around 50km of the epicentre.
Locals told how they heard a " big bang" that sounded like a "high speed car crash".
Alan Ferguson, 61, said: “I heard it. There was an almighty bang.
“I thought it was the kids messing around upstairs. There was one big bang.
“My boy came running in from the stables and said the whole thing moved.”
Sheelagh Still, 72, said: “We were going to watch Mastermind and then there was this colossal noise.
“I thought it was outside. Jim thought it was the roof.”
The ex-learning support coordinator added: “To me it sounded like a high speed car crash. Someone I spoke to said it was like a train going through a tunnel.
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“It was quite a racket. We’ve been here over 30 years and never ever had that, it was strange.”
Jim Still, 77, added: “I thought someone had been careless with a van or something.”
Mum-of-three Joan Gleason said: “I thought someone had crashed into the back of the house.
“It was very loud. Luckily this is a stone house.
“A painting fell off the wall in the back bit.”
Radiographer Edna MacLean, 71, said: “I looked up because I thought my roof was coming in. It felt weird.
“I was really quite worried though.”
School worker Paula McLean, 47, said: “It sounded like a big lorry go past. I was watching TV and it got louder.
“Then my chair shook. There was a little tremor after that.
“I’ve never felt anything by like that. Everyone has been talking about it.”
Doug Hart, 56, said: “We felt it. I was at the backdoor and my wife was in e living room.
“We heard a loud noise and a rambling. Then about less than a minute later there was a louder rumbling and the windows started to rattle.
“Anything loose was rattling in the house. I thought it might have been a big lorry or a plane.
“I’ve never heard anything like that. But I know there has been earthquakes around here.”
Bellachroy Inn owner Tom Walsh, 38, said: “I was at the epicentre. I live down the road.
“I thought it was a heavy good vehicle going past. The house shook.”
Mull resident Alasdair Satchel, 45, said he thought a car had crashed into his home when the earthquake struck.
The film, theatre and podcast maker told PA: "I was sitting at my desk about 7.30pm last night and heard a very big bang, then another very big bang and the house shook.
"We live in a wooden house and the whole house was just shaking.
"It made absolutely no sense.
"I went outside to see what happened as my wife had been taking my father-in-law home to the house, but he lives just down from us and it was icy outside, and I wondered if the car had slipped and hit the house.
"It was a very unusual experience, but brought a lot of people together in a very quick and unexpected way."
Tiree resident and civil servant Richard Cooke, 35, told PA he was getting ready for dinner when the room began to shake.
He said: "I thought it was a plane at first as we live near the airport."
Some took to social media to share their experience of the quake, where the epicentre was in the north west of the island near the village of Dervaig.
One person on Mull posted on X, formerly Twitter: "Anyone else here on the Isle of Mull think we've had a couple of earth tremors this evening?
"Like a rumbling train in a tunnel and lasting for a good number of seconds."
Another person wrote: "We heard a weird bang and the glasses and plates in the dresser started rattling."
Earlier on Monday, a 2.3 magnitude earthquake was recorded at Moidart in the Highlands at around 2.24pm, while a 1.1 magnitude quake hit Morvern, also in the Highlands, at 1.10pm.
All three quakes were at a depth of 7km.
It is the biggest quake to hit Scotland since 1974 when an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 hit Kintail in the north west Highlands.
David Galloway, a seismologist with the BGS, said Mull experienced six quakes in the space of around 10 minutes on Monday evening, ranging between one and 3.3 on the Richter scale.
He said: "We get around 300 earthquakes a year in the UK and north west Scotland is one of the most active places.
"We live in a dynamic planet, there are lots of plates moving about. There are stresses in the rocks and movement in the earth's crust, and in the UK every now and then the stress exceeds the strength of the rock and there will be a little earthquake.
"The 3.3-quake on Mull was very small on a world basis but on a UK basis it is a moderate earthquake."
It comes after Scotland was hit by a double earthquake two weeks ago.
Shortly after 12.18pm on Wednesday, January 17 Morvern in the Highlands recorded a quake of 1.4 magnitude.
Later that evening, Treshnish Islands off the coast of Argyll recorded a 1.1 magnitude quake.
The double quakes were the fourteenth tremours locals have felt in the last few months.
There are usually around 200 to 300 earthquakes in Britain every year.
And while most of them go unnoticed, around 30 can be felt and have a magnitude of 2.0 or larger.
In Scotland, earthquakes occur most often in the West and are associated with a geological feature called a fault.
Faults in Scotland can run for hundreds of miles.
The Highlands is one of the most active areas due to the Highland Boundary Fault Zone.
Also in the area are the Great Glen Fault Zone, Strathconon Fault, Kinlochhourn Fault and the Loch Maree Fault.
The Great Glen fault is roughly 300 miles in length cutting diagonally across from Inverness to Fort William and includes the famous Loch Ness.
This fault even has origins in events that happened around 400 million years ago.
What causes an earthquake?
- Despite the UK being quite far away from the nearest tectonic plate boundary of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, earthquakes in the UK occur when crustal stresses within the tectonic plates are relieved by movement on pre-existing fault planes
- But the direct fault of earthquakes in the UK is unclear.
- Suggestions include regional compression caused by the movement of Earth's tectonic plates and uplift resulting from the melting of ice sheets that covered Britain thousands of years ago
- Earthquakes with a magnitude of four happen roughly every two years and quakes with a magnitude of five happen every 10 to 20 years.
- Research has suggested the largest possible earthquake in the UK will be around 6.5 magnitude.
- Most of Scotland's earthquakes happen on the West coast and are almost completely absent from the east.
- More information on Earthquakes in the UK can be found .
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