Did the Earth move for you?

An earthquake has hit my old birthing ground. Course, as earthquakes go, a 4.3 shake is not much to write home about - especially when I'm sitting here in London and didn't feel a shiver.

What does amuse me, though, is how close this quake was to the Dungeness nuclear power stations. This aging, concrete mess was supposed to be retiring soon, but got a 10 year operating extension in 2005. I wonder how newsworthy a 4.3 shake would be if it had managed to damage the station? I wonder how much stronger the quake would have to be to do serious damage like, well, cracking a pipe or something.

To quote from the BBC news report: "This is by no means a complete surprise," he said. "There have been earthquakes in this location before. Two of them have been some of the biggest earthquakes ever to affect Britain. The first was in 1382 and in 1580 a quake with a magnitude of about six killed two people in London."

I'll just go check to see which way the wind's blowing ...