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Earthquake hits island home of
tremor expert
26.02.08
IT'S an irony that
isn't lost on Inishowen-based earthquake expert
Prof. John McCloskey.
Normally, the University of Ulster Geophysics
professor can be found studying earthquakes in
far-flung parts of the world including the
particularly volatile region of Sumatra in
Indonesia. These days he's talking about a
tremor...on his own island home.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 2.4 on the Richter
Scale occurred under Inch Island in the early hours
of Thursday morning.
Witnesses described hearing a loud metallic bang
followed by a rumbling sensation under their homes.
Reports were recorded right across North Donegal
including Fanad and Carrigart. |
Prof. McCloskey told
InishowenNews.com that while he didn't experience
the aftershock of the earthquake himself, his
colleagues told him it had occurred right under Inch
Island, where he's lived with his family for the
past seven years.
"Normally, I tell people the safest place for
seismologists to live is Ireland, but there you have
it...you can run but you can't hide," he laughs.
He said the earthquake, which struck around 2.30am,
occurred at a depth of around 5km and spread in a
seismic circle of around 100 metres in diameter. He
said he initially |
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thought the tremor was
related to one recorded at a similar time in Norway.
"But the data showed that the one in Donegal
occurred two minutes before the Norway one so they
weren't related at all," he said. Prof. McCloskey,
who is founder of the Geophysics Research Group at
the UU Coleraine campus, sprang to international
prominence following the catastrophic Indonesian
tsunami on St. Stephen's Day, 2004. He received the
data on last week's Donegal earthquake from his
counterparts in the British Geological Survey in
Edinburgh and the Dublin Institute for |
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Advanced Study in
Dublin. When they sent him the charts, the dot
marking the epicentre of the quake "completely
covered Inch Island".
Mary Connors, who moved to Inch Island from Boston
two years ago, heard the earthquake loud and clear.
"I was still up because I couldn't sleep very well
that night," she said.
"At around 2.30am, I heard this incredibly loud bang
that felt like it was coming from right outside my
house. It sounded very metallic and I thought maybe
a boat had hit rocks or something. Then there was
this rumbling sound underneath the house - it felt
as if there was a train passing underground. The
whole |
thing only lasted for
about three seconds."
Meanwhile, Prof. McCloskey invited people with
witness accounts of the Donegal earthquake to
contact his colleagues at the Dublin Institute for
Advanced Study. You can email Prof. Tom Blake at
tb@cp.dias.ie
or call him on 01 6621333. To read more about John
McCloskey
click
here . |
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