Guernsey Press

Mystery rumble ‘not an earthquake’

RUMBLES were felt and heard across the island yesterday.

Published
The three dogs owned by Samantha Masterman and a friend all stopped in their tracks and looked in the direction of Fort Grey seconds before she and her friend felt and heard a rumble which perplexed them.

But there is no explanation as to its cause.

Samantha Masterman took to Facebook to ask friends and family members if they had felt or heard the ‘massive rumble’ that she experienced on the beach at Fort Grey.

‘It was around 11am and I was walking my two dogs with my friend and her dog and all three of them suddenly stopped in their tracks and pricked up their ears,’ she told the Guernsey Press.

‘Then there was a very audible rumble which seemed to come from the south-west horizon, which is also the way all three dogs looked to when it happened.’

She said there was then a second rumble which she believed went on a bit longer than the first.

‘My friend said she felt it through the ground too, but I was less aware of that.’

Not only did she see that her dogs were ‘freaked out’, she turned to her friend and asked whether she thought the rumble was anything to be concerned about.

They made sure to look up and around to see whether it was caused by a large aircraft or thunder, but saw nothing but clear sky.

Several friends on Facebook said they felt or heard the rumble at various points in the island such as Vazon, Bordeaux and a lane in St Peter’s.

Ms Masterman speculated as to whether it could have been an aftershock of the earthquake in the UK yesterday morning.

People in the north-east of England woke to a small earthquake just before 6am. The 2.8-magnitude earthquake was centred around Stockton-on-Tees, but many reported feeling tremors in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.

However, the Guernsey Met Office had no notes of rumblings or movement. The duty observer checked the live feed from the seismometer at St Aubin in Jersey as well, but nothing was noted there either.

Glenn Ford, from the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said: ‘I can inform you that there was no evidence of a seismic disturbance, of any kind, detected by the BGS seismograph network in your area at [around mid-morning].’

He said the BGS regularly gets enquiries from the public reporting incidents but was certain this report was not an earthquake.