“It felt like a train was going by really loud”

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Scotland experienced its second earthquake in a week which one expert described as “quite unusual” because “people can already feel it”.

The latest earthquake occurred outside Roybridge, near Spin Bridge in the Scottish Highlands at 9.29 pm on Friday.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) reported an earthquake with a magnitude of 2.2 and a depth of 7.5 metres.

Glenn Ford, an on-call seismic analyst with BGS at the time of the earthquake, described the quake as “extremely insignificant” compared to other earthquakes seen around the world.

“From a UK perspective, because we’re a very low seismic zone, we probably only see about 15 earthquakes of this size or larger per year, so it’s quite unusual in this regard,” he said.

“We get about two to three hundred earthquakes every year somewhere in the UK region, so the fact that this earthquake was actually felt is unusual because about 90 per cent of it is so small that no one really realizes it.”

Mr. Ford added that the night-time quake was 17 billion times smaller than the earthquake that devastated Japan in 2011. “You wouldn’t look from your coffee or newspaper for an earthquake of this size in California or Japan,” he said.

One of the people who experienced the earthquake in Scotland was Ian MacDonald, who was staying in the village. “I felt a tremor, but I heard it so much more.” He said. “It was really noisy, like a train passing in front of the house.

“To me it looked like a train running past. I knew what it was right away, I had heard it before and felt a jolt before.”

Michael Cellars, a resident of the village, said he “heard a big rumble and the house shook.”

“It felt like a train was going by really loud,” he said.

Earlier this week, a 3.1-magnitude earthquake was reported just before 2 a.m. Tuesday. The epicenter was about 11 miles northwest of the town of Lochgilphead, 88 miles northwest of Glasgow.

Data from the British Geological Survey shows that between 200 and 300 earthquakes are detected in the UK each year, with tremors of between 3.0 and 3.9 on the mainland occurring on average once every three years.

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