The moment the biggest recorded onland earthquake rumbled through Melbourne
It was a year ago today that lockdown-weary Victorians were rattled by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. We look back on that eventful morning.
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One year ago today, Victorians going about their morning were rocked by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake that rattled the bones of a lockdown weary population.
Despite being relatively small on a global scale, the September 22 earthquake that struck at 9.15am was the biggest onshore earthquake ever recorded in Victoria.
The epicentre of the tremor was at Woods Point, a town 179km north east of Melbourne’s CBD, with the tremors felt up to 700km away.
Forty-six buildings across the city were damaged, with social media lighting up as people tweeted pictures of rubble strewn across streets.
oh no the falcons #melbourneearthquake pic.twitter.com/8zKrVmaqMo
— Anneliese Mak (@AnnelieseMak) September 21, 2021
Buildings in Chapel St and Windsor and Wattle streets in Prahran all recorded significant damage.
Interrupting Zoom calls, online classes and sleep-ins, reactions to the earthquake were widely varying, most people not knowing what to do or how to react.
People online delighted the internet with videos caught in the moment, of both human and animal reactions to the surprise natural occurrence.
Reaching a depth of 10km, the earthquake was felt as far away as Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide.
Thankfully, despite the damage, just one person suffered minor injuries, while about 35,000 homes lost power in the immediate aftershock of the quake.
According to Earth Resources, a branch of the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions in the state government, geoscientists believed the earthquake was the result of pressure transferred through tectonic plates, originating in New Zealand.
The built-up pressure caused a small part of an ancient geological fault to reactivate. Previously mapped by geologists, it had been named the Governor Fault.
The Governor Fault, a large and complex structure, extends from near Echuca and the northern parts of the Murray River, to the Gippsland Lakes in the southern region of the state. The fault line passes through the heart of the Victorian Alps.
The earthquake was “just a continuation of a long, ongoing natural process,” they said.
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