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Quake Britain: UK overdue a massive tremor that could kill scores of people at any moment, warn experts

By David Derbyshire for MailOnline
Updated: 03:20 EST, 17 September 2010

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Britain is overdue a killer earthquake that could see up to 100 people crushed to death, a leading geologist has warned.

Dr Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey believes a fracture in the earth's crust beneath the English Channel could slip at any time, sending a tremor rippling across the south east.

The same fault was to blame for one of Britain's biggest earthquakes in the last 500 years - a magnitude 6 quake that killed two children in London in 1580

A simulated earthquake in Merseyside earlier this month. Experts believe Britain is due a large earthquake which could kill dozens of people

Be prepared: A 'casualty' during a simulated earthquake in Merseyside last week. Experts believe Britain is due a large quake which could kill up to 100 people

According to Dr Musson, the same scale of earthquake would be 50 times more serious today because the population has grown so much.

Britain is shaken by hundreds of earthquakes every year, although most are too minor to detect.

Although they can occur anywhere, experts are most concerned about faults that have triggered earthquakes before.

The 1580 earthquake was a magnitude of 5.5 to 6 on the Richter Scale and caused “extensive damage in London”, even though its epicentre was in the Dover Straits, Dr Musson told the British Science Festival.

“This earthquake could certainly happen again because even the earthquake of 1580 itself was a repeat of a previous earthquake that occurred in 1382 with almost the same epicentre, almost the same size and almost the same results.

Since 1580 the population of London has gone up 50 times , he said.

Shook up: An elderly woman is escorted from her home in Folkestone through chimney rubble after a magnitude 4.3 earthquake hit the Kent coast in April, 2007

‘If two people were killed in London then, you can imagine yourself what sort of scaling up that would be for a contemporary earthquake of the same size,’ said Dr Musson.

“While that might not be a high death toll in world records it would certainly be a nasty shock in terms of Britain’s experience of earthquakes.’

It is impossible to predict when the next one will hit the UK.

He added: 'In terms of saying when is the next one going to be, all we can say is something that has happened twice can and probably will happen three times.

'But as to whether it happens tomorrow, or in two year’s time or in 20 years or 50 years time, that is something we would love to know but we don’t’.'

A magnitude 5.5 or 6 quake is unlikely to demolish buildings, but will topple chimneys and ornaments on older, poorly repaired homes.

'It may not sound very dramatic compared to buildings collapsing, but if people are walking on the street and a chimney falls on you its’ bad news,’ he said.

London and homes in the Thames valley are particularly vulnerable because they are built on soft clay which moves more in a quake than hard rock.

The epicentre of the Dover Straits hotspot is 10 miles below the surface of the sea bed and lies on of the faults in the earth's crust that riddle Europe.

The faults release tension that builds up when Europe's tectonic plate is pushed from the south by the plate under Africa.

The last noticeable earthquake in the UK shook Cumbria in APril 2009. It was 3.7 on the Richter Scale.

Geologists expect a magnitude 4.5 quake capable of shaking ornaments at least once a decade.

A moderate 5.5 earthquake – capable of causing major damage to badly constructed buildings - takes place every century on average