CLAIMS that an earthquake struck off the Sussex coast have been called into question.

The quake reportedly started under the English Channel about 34 kilometres from Camber shortly after 9am.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), an earthquake tracking site, said the earthquake had started at a depth of seven kilometres.

But the quake has been disputed by the British Geographical Survey (BGS).

A spokeswoman said: "This event appears to be a false positive caused by the automated processes used by the EMSC.

"It has since been removed after it has been reviewed by their seismologists.

"There is a very good chance that it is data from another event they have listed six seconds later in northern Algeria.

"We have scrutinised the nearest BGS stations which are only approximately 50km from the epicentre listed on the EMSC site, and there is absolutely no evidence of an event at that time.

"All events listed on the BGS website have been manually located and scrutinised by seismic analysts before publication."