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Quake jolts Britain

London: Britain was on Wednesday jolted by an earthquake, the biggest to hit the country in nearly 25 years that damaged property worth over £10 million.

The tremor, measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale, hit shortly before 1:00 am (0630 IST) with its epicentre in Lincolnshire, but people were woken as far away as Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire.

One person narrowly escaped death when a chimney smashed through the roof of his ed home and crashed into his bedroom in South Yorkshire.The Association of British Insurers said the cost of damage to homes and property was likely to be in excess of £10 million. The British Geological Survey said the epicentre was 8 km east of Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, and 22 km south west of Grimsby.

The tremor is the biggest in Britain since 1984 when north Wales was hit by a quake which was registered at 5.4.

People in Newcastle, Yorkshire, Manchester, the Midlands and Norfolk and also parts of Wales, felt the tremor. — PTI

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