“AN ENORMOUS thud” - that’s the description of what the earth tremor that hit South Wales last night felt like.

A tremor occurred at 11.59 pm on Friday, February 24, with a magnitude of 3.8 magnitude about eight miles north of the Rhondda Valley, with the exact location being Llangenny - small village on the slopes of the Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Argus columnist Jon Powell, 55, was seven miles away from the epicentre of the tremor when it hit, in Gilwern, between Abergavenny and Brymawr.

He said it was like a train coming through, but was very short-lived.

“There was an enormous thud of about two to three seconds, a rumbling like a train going through all of a sudden we had security lights going off,” said Mr Powell. “I thought someone had fallen in the house. It was very quick, pretty weird and pretty intense.”

Incredibly, it’s not the first earthquake Mr Powell has experienced in Wales. He described how ten years ago he remembered a similar event in the same house, in the room next door to the one he was in for last night’s tremor.

Mr Powell, who is a bit of an authority on geology and astronomy, said the tremor – which he insisted should be termed a tremor rather than a quake – was nothing to worry about.

“To come up in Quake Feed and register, that is a decent tremor,” said Mr Powell. “It’s nothing to worry about though. It’s just a nudge from mother nature. These things can happen.”

South Wales Argus:

(The village of Llangenny - the epicentre of the tremor)

In a statement released on Saturday morning, the UK's main provider of earthquake data, the British Geological Survey wrote: "BGS has received reports from residents throughout the region, mainly from within around 40km of the epicentre.”

The last earthquake recorded in the UK was apparently in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire in September 22, 2020, with tremors of 3.0 and 2.1 magnitude.

The largest known earthquake in the UK was in the North Sea in June 7, 1931, according to the BGS, recording a magnitude of 6.1. Its epicentre was located offshore in the Dogger Bank area, approximately 120 km northeast of Great Yarmouth.

Jon Powell writes the Night Sky column every first Thursday of the month. See it in the Argus.