A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck near Melbourne, the country’s second-largest city, TRT World reports.
More than half of Australia’s 25 million population lives in the southeast of the country from Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney. The local authorities say there was no damage to buildings and sending tremors throughout neighbouring states.
Geoscience Australia has said that Melbourne’s was the biggest quakes on record. The epicentre was near the rural town of Mansfield in the state of Victoria and was at a depth of 10 km. The only aftershock was rated 4.0, according to the seismologists.
Images and video footage circulating on social media showed rubble blocking one of Melbourne’s main streets, while people in northern parts of the city said on social media they had lost power and others said they were evacuated from buildings.
The quake was felt as far away as the city of Adelaide and Sydney, although there were no reports of damage outside Melbourne and no reports of injuries, PM Scott Morrison told reporters in Washington.
“We have had no reports of serious injuries, or worse, and that is very good news and we hope that good news will continue,” the head of the government added.
Earthquakes are rare in Australia
An earthquake of this nature could be a very disturbing event, Morrison said. In fact, the natural disaster of that type is very rare events in Australia, that is why people have been quite distressed and disturbed. Australia’s position in the middle of the Indo-Australian Tectonic Plat makes the country a rather calm place to live, so, quakes are relatively unusual in the continental populated east, Geoscience Australia explains.
The quake on Wednesday measured higher than the country’s deadliest tremor, a 5.6 in Newcastle in 1989, which resulted in 13 deaths.
The quake presented a potential disruption for anti-lockdown protests expected in Melbourne on Wednesday, which would be the third day of unrest that has reached increasing levels of violence and police response.
