Fatalities in British earthquakes

Abstract

The epidemiology of British earthquakes has not been previously studied, largely because the casualty rate from earthquakes in the UK is very low. Over the period for which reliable records are available, only 12 fatalities can be traced with any certainty. Of these, only ten were directly due to the earthquake, six of these due to people being hit by falling stones or rock and four due to building damage. Of these four, in the case of two it is not even certain that the building collapse was due to the earthquake. There is a lack of correlation between earthquake magnitude and earthquake casualties in the UK; this is in accord with general observations in earthquake epidemiology.