Residents speak of shock after being woken by EARTHQUAKE in early hours of morning

The earthquake was felt in the Stockton area, according to the British Geological Survey.
Image by Google Maps. — The earthquake was felt in the Stockton area, according to the British Geological Survey. Image by Google Maps.

The 3.0 magnitude quake hit Stockton-on-Tees in County Durham at around 5.57am on Thursday, according to the British Geological Survey.

On the Richter scale, an earthquake of that size is likely to be felt by some people, but is unlikely to cause damage to any buildings.

On social media, users claiming to be in the area, reacted to the tremor.

One person said that their house was shaken by the incident, adding that it was "bad enough to wake us up".

A fellow user said that it shook their house "as if a train went past my bedroom window".

Another posted that it was a "strong earthquake (for England)", saying that the "whole house shook and electricity flickered".

"Wow that's a first, felt an #earthquake in Stockton around 6am this morning", one user said.

The British Geological Survey website shows the impact of the earthquake.
Image by The British Geological Survey. — The British Geological Survey website shows the impact of the earthquake. Image by The British Geological Survey.

Meanwhile United States Geological Survey said that 139 reports on the shake had been received from the public.

Cleveland Police confirmed that they received 15 reports from the public regarding the reported earthquake at around 6am today.

Officers attended a number of addresses with colleagues from Cleveland Fire Brigade and no one was injured

But Cleveland Fire Brigade spokeswoman for the service said they were called at 5.58am to a report of an explosion at a bungalow in the Wolviston Court area of Billingham but on arrival crews found no such incident.

The fire service said the call had been made with good intent.

The British Geological Survey said although the UK is not generally associated with earthquakes, between 20 to 30 earthquakes are felt by people each year, and a few hundred smaller ones are recorded by sensitive instruments.

Most of these are very small and cause no damage.

The British Geological Survey said that although the cause of UK earthquakes are unclear, they can be caused by regional compression as a result of the motion of the Earth’s tectonic plates, and uplift resulting from the melting of the ice sheets that covered parts of Britain thousands of years ago.