Did the earth move for you is a question many of us have asked, more in hope than expectation. But on April 28, 2007 much of the county got out of their bed safe in the knowledge that yes, it really had.

Because just before 8.20am on a sunny Saturday, the biggest earthquake in the UK for almost 50 years shook Folkestone and could be felt as far as Suffolk and Brussels in Belgium.

The quake triggered fire alarms in cars and businesses across the county.

Hundreds of buildings in Folkestone, which was closest to the epicentre, were damaged, with insurers later putting the total repair bill at in excess of £10million. Fortunately, there were no reported injuries.

Mike Godden, a crew manager at the fire service in Folkestone, said at the time: "We had been sat at the breakfast table and it felt as if someone had driven a lorry into the fire station. It was a major impact. It shook violently.

"I was wondering if a plane had been brought down, or part of the Channel Tunnel had collapsed, which had rocked the ground and caused this damage."

For those of us living elsewhere in the county, the sensation of feeling the earth shake was rather unnerving.

After all, earthquakes, we tend to believe, happen elsewhere in the world and not in the British Isles.

Yet this year alone - and bear in mind we're only in February - has seen more than 20 tremors registered nationwide. Granted, many are too small even to notice, but it does remind us that we are all sat upon the ever moving and evolving Earth's crust.

And, granted, while we're unlikely to ever see the scale of earthquake which causes devastation seen by those countries living along well known fault lines in the Earth's tectonic plates - the huge slabs of floating rock which form the Earth's crust - there's every chance we'll feel the ground shake once again.

"There are a few faults under Kent," explains Dr Daniel Donoghue, principal lecturer in geography at Canterbury Christ Church University.

"I know there's certainly one under Folkestone and a few off-shore in the Channel.

"They're probably quite small.

"Faults don't have to be along a tectonic boundary - you can theoretically have a fault anywhere."

The world's big tectonic boundaries are where the major earthquakes generally occur. As the huge plates move alongside one another, they can sometimes get temporary stuck. And when they free themselves the release of the tension sends out seismic shockwaves.

But the scale of the quakes experienced there - and the devastation they wreak - is significantly more powerful than we in Kent are ever likely to be subjected to.

To give an indication, the Folkestone earthquake in 2007, according to the British Geological Survey, registered 4.3 on the Richter Scale - the officially recognised measurement of earthquakes.

The earthquake which sparked the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 reached 9.1. The devastation it caused led to almost 229,000 deaths and displaced more than 1.1 million people.

It makes a few chimney pots and dodgy walls crumbling seem rather insignificant.

Adds Dr Donoghue: "Around here it won't be the same as along tectonic boundaries where they act like a zipper almost, the tension builds up, and then unzips as it were.

"The most common type of fault we're likely to have here is what you probably call a mid-plate fault. All around the edges of a tectonic plate there's pressure, and over time that squeezes and somewhere there might be a weakness. So, theoretically, you could have an earthquake anywhere, it's not just at the edges.

"There have been some big earthquakes thousands of miles from the edge of the nearest tectonic plate edge boundary.

"Africa is hitting into and going underneath Europe and that pressure of the two plates colliding, builds up everywhere on the plate and at some point you can just have a rupture."

Folkestone's headline grabbing 2007 quake was far from the one and only felt in the county.

There was another in the same town just two years later - albeit this one being a rather milder 2.8 magnitude.

In the early hours of May 22, 2015, many were woken to experience the bizarre sensation of ornaments rattling loud enough to wake them up after an earthquake struck Thanet.

The epicentre was in Ramsgate but could be felt across much of the east of the county - waking up residents and causing no little alarm.

It registered 4.2 on the Richter Scale but, fortunately, caused little in the way of structural damage to property. It, along with 2007 Folkestone quake, remain two of the most powerful quakes to have ever hit the UK.

(The biggest, in case you were wondering, was in 1931 in the North Sea near Dogger Bank - an area familiar to fans of the shipping forecast. It rated at 6.1 on the Richter Scale.)

Granted, we have to go back a few centuries for other major disruptions to the county - and to the biggest we have ever felt.

In 1580, there was an earthquake somewhere in the Straits of Dover which was a biggie - relatively speaking, that is. Believed to have been of 5.8 magnitude, it shook buildings as far away as London and caused extensive damage. Buildings in Lille, France, collapsed. Several people in Flanders were killed.

Although, of course, it's important to remember that buildings would not have been as structurally sound then as they are today.

Walls in Dover collapsed, there was a landslip on the White Cliffs and Saltwood Castle in Hythe made uninhabitable due to the damage caused.

It is said to have even inspired the earthquake mentioned in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Taking place during Easter week many at the time thought it a sign of God's will.

Poet James Yates wrote (in the language of the time): "Oh sudden motion, and shaking of the earth; No blustering blastes, the weather calme and milde; Good Lord the sudden rarenesse of the thing; A sudden feare did bring, to man and childe; They verely thought, as well in field as Towne; The earth should sinke, and the houses all fall downe."

After-shocks in the days following would also cause damage.

The size of the quake was able to be identified when the Channel Tunnel was being built and engineers could see what had occurred - and could ensure the tunnel's structure could withstand any future tremors.

Almost 200 years before that, in 1382, there were another two big ones in the Channel - one believed to have registered at 5.8 and another at 5.0. Taking place within days of one another, it caused extensive damage - particularly in Canterbury, which saw the bell tower of Canterbury Cathedral collapse as a consequence.

So what can we expect in the future?

Explains Dr Donoghue: "I would say the likelihood of us having anything substantial is virtually nil.

"You can never say never; it could potentially happen. There could be a mantel plume rising underneath us we don't know about and it could suddenly hit and erupt and open up a whole new tectonic boundary.

"But with modern technology I would imagine we'd probably be able to map under the Earth's surface better than we can now.

"The chances of us getting others close to a 5.0 on the Richter scale are very limited.

"But then, the Downs, have been caused by pressure that causes folding - and that pressure doesn't happen without some sort of ground movement. But we have no evidence of any deep faults here."