People across Derbyshire were woken up in the early hours of Wednesday morning by the biggest tremor to hit for nearly a quarter-of-a-century.
It was just before 1am when the quake - which measured 5.3 on the Richter scale according to the British Geological Survey - struck.
Reports say that its epicentre was in Market Rasen in Lincolnshire.
The tremor was the biggest to hit the UK s
ince one in North Wales in 1984.
Police had 370 non-emergency calls countywide within an hour of the quake but had no available figures of how its 999 service was affected.
Derbyshire Times editor Mike Wilson was one of those woken up.
He said: "I had just gone to bed and was dozing when I heard something and then felt the tremor rock the house. It was all over very quickly - and was certainly not as dramatic as the one in 1984.
"I immediately got up to check for damage - luckily there was none - and put on the television to find out what had happened."
Alwyn, who lives at Newbold in Chesterfield, emailed to say: "There was a bang and then everything shook and rattled. Quite scary really."
He said they went outside to see if others were about but did not see anyone.
Hannah Jowett, who lives in Alfreton, said the tremor "shook my house with a loud rumbling sound."
Rachel of Chesterfield, says: "We were woken by this almighty bang and the house started to shake. I thought I'd dreamt it until I asked my partner this morning! Very scary."
Lynsey, of North Wingfield, says: "We were woken by the bed violently shaking and the whole house shaking. "ith the shaking was an awful deep rumbling noise. Small objects fell off shelves.
"Totally unexpected and was very scared by the whole experience. After checking for structural damage i was suprised to find just a crack in the chimney. Thank god it didn't last any longer than 20 seconds."
What were your experiences - and did your property suffer damage? Email us with your reaction to: editorial@derbyshiretimes.co.uk
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