crazyscot

Apropos yesterday's post it seems I may have, ah, spoken too soon.

Picture the scene. It's about half past eight and you're just about to serve up dinner. Suddenly you become aware of a relatively loud rumbling - it's pervasive, apparently coming from all directions and none in particular, and getting louder. You and your partner look at each other. The lights start swaying quite seriously and as you both dive for the cover of the dining room table you hear the crockery in the cupboards rattle.

So now you're both sat under the table and it's Still. Going. On. The rumbling is continuing and the (solid) floor seems to be rolling gently. You exchange unprintable exclamations.

Finally, after what could have been 15 or 30 seconds, it all dies down. You both take a deep breath, get up, dust yourselves down, dance the Earthquake Dance (well, you've got to have some pre-arranged way to relieve the nervous tension, otherwise you'd cry) and go serve up dinner. A toast, to the seismic levels going down, not up.

That was the strongest quake we've felt to date. Geonet call it as Mw 5.5. Nothing seems to have broken, but I'm starting to understand why people - particularly young families - have left and are continuing to leave town.