A magnitude-2.8 earthquake rattled residents in Finnish Lapland's municipality of Enontekiö on Friday morning.
According to local reports, the temblor was loud and felt by residents in the neighbouring municipality of Muonio, around 50km away.
Tuija Luhta, a seismologist at the University of Helsinki's Institute of Seismology, confirmed that Enontekiö experienced a major earthquake by Finnish standards.
Shaken morning coffee
The temblor struck during local resident Iisko Matti Näkkäläjärvi’s morning cup of coffee. When the he felt the quake at his home inn Enontekiö's village of Näkkälä, he glanced at the clock, which read 7.03am
"I wondered where the thunder was and why the window panes were rattling," Näkkäläjärvi recounted.
At first, Näkkäläjärvi also thought a jet plane might have flown overhead. After no signs of a thunderstorm or an airplane, he suspected his old heating system was acting up. But an inspection of the apparatus revealed that it was not behind the noise, either.
It was then he realised the rumbling might have been caused by an earthquake.
Dozens of small quakes annually in Finland
Each year, several dozen earthquakes are recorded in Finland, according to the University of Helsinki's Institute of Seismology. These temblors are usually relatively weak, measured at magnitudes of 0 to 4 on the Richter scale.
As of last Tuesday, a total of 44 earthquakes had been recorded in Finland in 2022. The strongest of these was logged on February 2, in Kuusamo.
Prior to Friday, three small quakes had been documented in Enontekiö this year: on 5 January (magnitude of 0.5) 15 February (1.2) and 25 March (1.0).
Finland's strongest earthquake this decade occurred on 10 March 2020 in Enontekiö, which had a magnitude of 2.5.