Friday 14 March 2008

England Rocks

Swathes of England were left devastated by the largest earthquake to hit the country in nearly 25 years. Chimney stacks tumbled and ornaments toppled from shelves as the 5.2 Richter scale quake shook the very foundations of the nation.

As English people are unused to seismic activity, many of them had no idea what was happening.
Lech Jankowski, a construction worker in Leeds, said: “It felt like the house was falling down. Some of the fifteen other workers in the house thought it was a terrorist bomb.”
Stanislaw Kowalczyk, a farm worker in Lincolnshire, said: “I was terrified and so were the twenty other labourers sharing our flat. We thought a plane had crashed.”

As the Government appealed for calm, opposition politicians demanded to know why so many houses had been built in dangerous earthquake zones.

“Is this the end for UK housing market?” asked the Daily Nail. “Brown Unprepared for Earthquake!” screamed the Daily Repress. The Undependent’s 12-page special “Climate Change Tremor” called for Britain to face up to the risks of Japanese-style earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement saying: “it is unavoidable that some elements of Japanese building regulations will be introduced in Britain.”

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