Earthquake strikes 155 miles off Scotland

AN EARTHQUAKE was detected in the North Sea yesterday, 155 miles east of Aberdeen.

Its size, of magnitude 3.5, would have been significant had it occurred on land, but it caused no noticeable ground shaking.

The tremor was in an area called Central Graben, about 55 miles from where a 4.2 quake in May 2001 was felt on the Ekofisk oil and gas platform.

David Galloway, of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said: "Had it been 250 kilo- metres further west - basically in the Aberdeen area - we would have been inundated with calls. It is the size of earthquake that would have been quite widely felt … not enough to do damage but it would have woken a few people up and a few dishes would have been rattled."