LINTHAL - An earthquake of magnitude 4.0 shook the border region between the cantons of Glarus and Uri in the early hours of Sunday, waking light sleepers across large parts of Switzerland. The Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich recorded the tremor shortly before 5:00, around six kilometres west of Linthal.
By mid-morning, almost 300 people had filed felt reports with the service, from the Linth valley to the Zurich lakeside and the Bernese Midlands. The institute said an event of this strength was likely felt across the whole country. No major damage was known on Sunday morning, although isolated minor damage close to the epicentre cannot be ruled out for a quake of this size.
A short jolt, then seconds of shaking
Many of the felt reports described a brief jolt followed by several seconds of shaking and a deep rumble. In the villages along the Linth, residents spoke of rattling windows and furniture shifting. Further away, most reports were of swaying beds and cupboard doors vibrating in the minutes before dawn.
The service located the epicentre automatically within minutes and confirmed the magnitude at 4.0. Earthquakes of this strength sit at the level where people notice them easily but buildings normally hold. The last hours of the night are also when felt reports arrive fastest, because sleepers wake with the motion.
A reminder two weeks after the big drill
Switzerland records between 500 and 800 earthquakes a year, but only 10 to 20 of them are strong enough to be felt. Valais and the Engadine top the statistics in a typical year, while the Glarus Alps see repeated smaller events along the border with Uri.
Sunday's tremor comes less than two weeks after Switzerland hosted its first EU civil protection exercise, a four-day drill in which 500 rescuers rehearsed a severe earthquake in Geneva, Vaud and Fribourg. For households, the advice remains the one taught in Zurich's Resilience Weeks: drop, cover and hold on, and keep an emergency stock at home.