DONEGAL ROCKED BY 2.4 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE LAST NIGHT


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Last night Co. Donegal was rocked by a 2.4 magnitude earthquake 10:58pm (22:58hrs) the earthquake occurred just of Donegal Bay between Slieve League and Mullaghmore Sligo.

A number of people in south Donegal around Glencolmcille & Kilcar have felt the tremor and reported it as it shuck the ground last night and reported a massive Bang.

On the 7th April 2019 at 22:58:19 UTC (23:58:19 local time) an earthquake of magnitude 2.4 occurred in Donegal. The location of the epicentre is 54.53N, 8.62W, see figure below. The event was felt by members of the public in Kilcar, about 5km west from Killybegs in the south west of Co. Donegal. There is anecdotal evidence that it was felt as far north as Ardara and south as Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal. Events of this nature are not uncommon in the region.

CONTINUES BELOW

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The event was recorded on the stations of the Irish National Seismic Network (INSN) see seismic traces below. Stations from the BGS network in the UK detected the event as well.

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Don’t be so shocked to see a earthquakes so close to Ireland. We have our own fault line in Donegal which is called the Leannan Fault line. Aligned northeast to southwest, the Great Glen Fault extends further southwest in a straight line through Loch Linnhe and the Firth of Lorne, and then on into north-western Ireland, directly through Lough Foyle, Donegal Bay and Clew Bay as the Leannan Fault. To the northeast the fault connects to the Walls Boundary Fault and the associated Melby Fault and Nesting’s Fault, before becoming obscured by the effects of Mesozoic rifting to the north of Shetland. The fault is mostly inactive today, but occasional moderate tremors have been recorded over the past 150 years. Ask the people living around the fault line from Donegal and they will tell you earthquakes in Ireland aren't a new thing to them but don't happen very often.

For the latest on earthquake in Ireland click here

Kenneth Mc Donagh from the Donegal Weather Channel

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