News of an earthquake that struck the UK in the early hours of Wednesday morning caused a surge in traffic to Sky.com/news with more page impressions recorded on the site at 1am than 9am, the site’s executive producer Julian March writes on the Editors’ Blog.

A similar effect was experienced by the Nottingham Evening Post’s site, HoldtheFrontPage reports, after it posted news of the quake within 30 minutes.

The site saw 1,821 readers visit between 1am and 2am – increasing this to 6,000 by 9am, 20,000 page views and 60 comments on the story – though it’s a shame they appear to have only opened this feature from 6am.

Both great examples of why it’s crucial to break news online – whether a local or national title – and get ‘ownership’ of the story to keep drawing those viewers back.

The BBC’s online and radio coverage was hot on the heels of the incident, though the video below – courtesy of student journalism blogger Dave Lee – suggests their TV news had to play catch up.

(I like the idea of competitive news watching between channels)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foD0YXHIknQ]