Ever been in an earthquake?

[Mich the Tester]

The Rhine valley is a fault line, and the cause of many earthquakes. Including one that levelled Basel 700 or so years ago. The bigs one happen every 600 years, so next one is way overdue...

The first I experienced in Basel was a 4.7 in 2002. The sofa started shaking. My son came downstairs terrified because his wood-panelled room was making alarming noises. No damage cause. Since then there's been one every two years or so that I've felt.

I experienced one in Vevey in 2005 that was also around 4.5. That was caused by the Alpine faults.

The Swiss guy who said there aren't any earthquakes in Switzerland is a fool.

sales rep for the Swiss Tourism organisation.

[BlasterBates]

I experienced a 5.5 earth quake in Koblenz in Germany in the middle of the night. The building was moving from side to side, not particularly quickly, and I could hear the wardrobe thumping against the walls, when I got up to find out why the wardrobe was thumping around, I noticed the floor felt incredibly unstable, moving around like jelly, which was weird; I then heard an almighty crack outside which was an old stone wall around the back. Definitely a scary experience.

[darmstadt]

We had one (4,4) last week (Rhein-Main area) which I never felt, in fact they seem to be getting more and more common. I know my mates flat in Köln had a lovely great crack across his ceiling from one a few years ago.

[EternalOptimist]

i noticed a couple of tiny ones here in Manchester last year. its definately an eerie experience.

In fact one of them was caused by global warming so I was lucky to get out alive

[NotAllThere]

We had one (4,4) last week (Rhein-Main area) which I never felt, in fact they seem to be getting more and more common. I know my mates flat in Köln had a lovely great crack across his ceiling from one a few years ago.

Date Time (UTC): 2011/02/14 12:43:09
Lat: 50.40
Lon: 7.90
Depth: 5.0
MagT: Mb
Mag: 4.3
Agency: GSR
LocT: m
Region: Germany

Hmm. Valentines day. I wonder for how many people the earth moved?

[PRC1964]

I was in a 6.1 in Chile a few years back. Luckily it only lasted a few seconds. The locals didn't seem too bothered as it was smaller than the one they'd had two weeks earlier.

[TimberWolf]

The Wiki has some interesting comparisons of earthquakes and man-made weapons. Bearing in mind the Richter scale is logarithmic, with each integer increment being 32 times as energetic as the last.

A Nagasaki sized atomic bomb is 5 on the Richter scale, described as 'moderate' on the Richter scale.
The biggest nuclear bomb ever tested is about equivalent in energy to a magnitude 8.5. Earthquakes of this magnitude occur about once a year.

A 1960 quake, at magnitude 9.5, was more than 32 times more powerful than the most powerful nuclear bomb tested.

We aren't doing too bad then.

[TimberWolf]

Interesting Google map animation here that shows earthquakes going off in Christchurch over a selectable period in the recent past. Lots of small ones are going off constantly. 57 in the last 25 hours, mostly in the 3 to 4 magnitude range.