Manchester rocks again, taking tremor count to 15

Manchester was rocked by several more tremors yesterday, bringing the number of earthquakes to shake the city over the past two days to at least 15, the British Geological Survey said.

Just before 1.30pm yesterday workers and shoppers in the city centre experienced a tremor that was recorded with a preliminary figure of 2.5 on the Richter scale.

It was the latest in a series to shake the county of Greater Manchester, and provoked excitement among experts, who said analysis of the results would reveal the tremors as particularly unusual.

The first earthquake alarmed people arriving for work at 8.45am on Monday and measured 3.2 on the Richter scale. A bigger earthquake – 3.9 on the Richter scale – shook the city at lunchtime on Monday and police reported up to 190 calls from residents.

Julian Bukits, assistant seismologist at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said further tremors were recorded throughout Monday evening and at 4.39am a tremor measuring 2.9 on the Richter scale was recorded, followed by a number of smaller earthquakes being recorded up to 1pm yesterday.

And at just before 1.30pm the city centre of Manchester rumbled again.

"It looks like this earthquake is slowly releasing its energy," said Mr Bukits, who added that the West Midlands earthquake last month was just one blast measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale.

He said: "That makes the experiences in Manchester different. It's not one big bang. It makes it interesting, distinctive and unusual.

"It will be exciting looking at all the information we are collecting when we get time."

More than 1,200 people have e-mailed the British Geological Survey's website to share their experiences of the earthquakes. Mr Bukits said the epicentre of the earthquakes stretched for 10 kilometres across the city centre.