We just had an earthquake in Derby. A pretty bloody strong one, too.

The epicentre was 70 miles east of me, yet my entire room shook for at least 45 seconds. My first instinct was that a bomb had gone off. It was kind of scary, but also very surreal: I could hear the shaking but I didn’t hear a blast or anything that could have caused it.

There are loads of people out in the car park and all my flatmates are crying. I’m a bit teary-eyed too, though I was quite emotional before it happened anyway.

It seems the appropriate thing to do now would be to make a cup of tea.

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2008-02-27 02:25: best quotes so far, courtesy of Chris and Jen.
2008-02-27 03:09: looking at this map I see that there’s a strong possibility every one of my friends at least felt it :/ I’m probably more worried because it was so strong here, but… how is everyone?
2008-02-27 03:39: There are, of course, several Facebook groups. A commemorative shirt within three hours of the event, however, is just taking it too far.
2008-02-27 08:44: Now that there is enough light to see, I’ve noticed that the bird nest in the tree outside my window has been destroyed (with the birds that built it (presumably) sitting in a row on the branch that was their home looking rather dejected). There was a pink kiddy-car abandoned on the school field next door which has moved about 30 feet, too. My favourite news story, from The Sun, includes the quote:

Stunned Mark Young said he looked out of his window and saw an eight foot crack in his neighbour’s garden at Leicester. He said: “There was a big crack through the ground and there was smoke and flames coming out. It was spitting things out. “It is eight foot long and two foot wide.”