Strong Earthquake in Svalbard

It was a big storm with strong wind this night, but nothing unusual here. Suddenly something strange woke up us in the middle of a sleep!

The whole house inclined to one side and back and afterwards it swung for a while. It was a bit like swinging on a boat. First we thought that it was just the strong wind dashed against our house..

We came to an idea that it had to be an earthquake and then we happily fall a sleep again. Our idea was confirmed in the morning when we looked at the web page of NORSAR - the strongest earthquake in Norway ever! ...and this pictures are taken from window of our bedroom in the middle of the storm.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Temperature : -2.6°C
Wind Chill : -19.9°C/
Average Wind Speed : 11.3 m/s /
Wind Gust : 15.0 m/s /
Humidity : 73%

An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale was registered early morning at 3:46 a.m. in Storfjorden, about 140 km south-east of Longyearbyen. This is the strongest quake in Norwegian history.
Figure (NORSAR/ jordskjelv.no) showing the epicenter, 140 km from Longyearbyen
The focus of the quake was localized on the sea floor, about 10 km under into the earth's crust. 15 aftershocks was registered shortly after.

The epicenter in Storfjorden lies close to a relatively large fault running in north-south direction. Through Svalbard's geological history this fault has repeatedly been the focus of seismic activity.
No damage from the quake has been reported in Longyearbyen. Consequences had probably been severe if the epicenter was located on land.

Svalbard is there up with the big red dot. Strongest eartquake in Norway, mainland: 5,4 in Oslo, 1904.
Strongest pre-20th century quake in Norway (prior to seismic measurements): probably close to 6 at Helgeland, 1819.