Iselin Nærbø lives in Voss. She was woken several times during the night by the cat Lone that she looks after.
– She meowed a lot, was anxious and woke me up many times before the tremor. She doesn’t usually behave like that, says Nærbø to BA.
At 0421 the cat Lone was right in his anxiety, and the earthquake could be felt at Voss.
– I woke up suddenly from a very loud noise. I thought someone blew up outside my window. I felt the ground shake, then I realized it was an earthquake.
Hysterical cat
Nærbø, who first spoke to TV 2, says the quake lasted for a while.
– I have never experienced an earthquake that has lasted so long before. During the tremor, I began to wonder if I should run to the mountains.
After the earthquake, there was not much peace for Nærbø either.
– I couldn’t go back to bed, I had to calm down a hysterical cat. She was very scared, says Nærbø about the kitty Lone.
– Sounded like an avalanche
Trygve Lyshagen Tømmerås also noticed the quake.
– It started with me waking up from a dark storm, and it sounded like an avalanche, says Tømmerås, who lives just outside Voss, to BA.
The local politician does not wake up easily, he points out.
– My roommate also woke up. I think everyone at Voss must have woken up. It was a special experience to wake up and wonder what was going on and where the sound was coming from. You don’t think of an earthquake when you wake up in the middle of the night in Norway.
Shaking and rumbling
He says that he has lived in Central America and is therefore not completely unfamiliar with earthquakes every now and then.
– What surprised me was how long this earthquake lasted. I managed to wake up, get up and get out of bed. I have never experienced an earthquake last so long before.
The first report of the earthquake was registered at 0422 on Monday night.
– A man in Vaksdal had felt the earthquake. He described it as a clear shaking in the house and as a kind of rumbling, says Berit Marie Storheim, senior engineer at the Department of Geosciences, to NTB.
She states that the earthquake is located at Mjølfjell, which is located east of Raundalen in Voss municipality in Vestland county. The strength is calculated at 3.3 on the Richter scale.
– Little in the world context
Many people in Voss and the surrounding area woke up to the earthquake. A BA tipster describes that it felt like a drone. Several people in Bergen state that they also felt shaking, far away from the epicenter of the earthquake.
– 3.3 is a small earthquake in the world context. In Norway, it is not unusual for earthquakes of magnitude 3.3. We have quite a few tremors at this force in Norway, says senior engineer Storheim.
Storheim says that people have no reason to be afraid or anxious.
– No, there is no reason to be anxious. We don’t expect any damage to buildings or infrastructure, she says.
West police district informs BA that they did not receive any calls about the earthquake.
– Like a freight train under the house
Another person who woke up from the quake was Anne Grethe Aalandslid on Voss.
– I slowly but surely woke up to a loud noise. It was like a freight train was passing under my house. There was a loud sound approaching, then it shook a bit before the sound slowly disappeared again, describes Aalandslid.
– It was fun. It is so safe here that I didn’t feel afraid, she says.
Aalandslid says that she received Snapchat messages from several others who had noticed the quake, and that her colleagues at work had also noticed it.
– It is a bit special when it is so powerful, and that it happens so far into the country, she says.
