Mysterious tremors shake Stockholm…but NOT caused by earthquakes: Locals baffled by mysterious tremors

Many people living in and around Stockholm felt a strange rumble, with seismologists firmly denying it was an earthquake.

According to the Swedish National Seismological Network (SNSN), nothing was detected to indicate that an earthquake had occurred.

“We can definitely rule out that it was an earthquake,” says Peter Schmidt, seismologist at SNSN

Louise Levin, head of communications for the Swedish Air Force, joked: “You can call Saab (the Swedish aerospace company) for that.”

In fact, the Air Force has conducted tests in the area that may be responsible. “I can’t say with certainty that there were explosions, but that’s what it sounds like,” said Mattias Rådström, press manager of the air force.

Local residents took to Twitter to comment on the mysterious shaking in the Swedish city: “If it wasn’t an earthquake, what was? It shook violently,” wrote a local resident.

Another commenter asked: “Is this an earthquake?”.

A local Facebook group had more comments about the earthquake: “It hit like thunder and then it shook.” said a resident of an island outside Stockholm.

“The house shook badly about an hour ago. At first I thought it was the building… but it was something else, much more powerful,” said another.

The Stockholm County rescue service assumes that the earthquakes were due to road construction work, “but we don’t know,” says Henrik Jynnersjö of the rescue services.

The Swedish Transport Authority says they are not aware of any major works in the area.

Although there are earthquakes in Sweden daily, they are usually too small to be felt by anyone except advanced seismic technology

Sweden experiences earthquakes every day, but only on a minimal scale, so minimal that they can often only be detected with seismic-sensitive equipment. This is not to say that the country has never felt a stronger earthquake.

“We can get earthquakes up to a magnitude of six on the Richter scale. Five point four is the strongest we are absolutely sure of. It happened in 1904 on the Koster Islands on the west coast. It was so big that all of southern and central Sweden, Norway and all of Denmark were shaken. And it should be felt even as far as Sint Petersburg,” says Björn Lund, head of the SNSN.

According to a website that tracks seismic activity, Sweden’s last confirmed earthquake was on January 19 in a county northeast of Stockholm, measuring 1.1 on the Richter scale.

However, there are some unusual anomalies where vibrating hammers appear to be shifted geographically by the shifting effect of tectonic plate movement.

“Over the past 20 years, we have observed a group of seismic sites that are not behaving quite as we thought they would. We don’t know why they are there,” Lund explained in a short film released by SNSN.