Scotland rattled by earthquake

Residents of western Scotland received a bump in the night after an earthquake shook the region in the early hours of Tuesday.

A quake with a magnitude of 3.1 occurred just before 2am with its epicentre some 11 miles north-west of the town of Lochgilphead, 88 miles north-west of Glasgow, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

More than 30 people reported to the USGS that they had felt the tremor, with reports coming from as far as Edinburgh and Ballycastle in Northern Ireland.

The agency said the quake happened 10km below the Earth’s surface.

Data from the British Geological Survey shows between 200 and 300 earthquakes are detected in the UK every year, with tremors of between 3.0 and 3.9 magnitude occurring on the mainland once every three years on average.