One lady lost control of her frying pan, but aside from that, any damage appears to have been wryly self-inflicted, as residents went online to mock the severity of the 3.8-magnitude quake.

“We will rebuild” and “#prayforScarborough” were just some of the comments annotating a picture of a capsized deckchair, while a video of an inch-high wave washing over an elderly person’s feet came with a “tsunami warning”.

The local tourism industry wasted no time in exploiting an authentically Yorkshire earthquake, if only to describe the event as “less moving” than the famous local coastline.

Much of the local reaction, however, was couched in a tone of disappointment that the tectonic phenomenon was not more dramatic.

“In case you were wondering, we never felt the earthquake. Life is just boringly normal,” tweeted Lesley Newton, a mother from the town.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the tremor was “barely perceptible” because it took place 11 miles beneath the North Sea, and about 90 miles away from Scarborough.