Magnitude three earthquake near Wilsons Promontory on Monday night

A magnitude three earthquake hit Gippsland on Monday night, with the epicentre at Sandy Point near Wilsons Promontory and likely to have been felt in Foster, Inverloch and Leongatha.

A magnitude three earthquake hit Gippsland on Monday night, with the epicentre at Sandy Point near Wilsons Promontory.

Victoria’s SES reported the quake shortly before 8pm, saying it had occurred at a depth of about 10km.

There were nearly 70 reports of the earthquake in less than hour, according to Geoscience Australia.

According to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) shallow earthquakes are felt more strongly than deeper ones as they are closer to the surface.

It was possible it was felt in Foster, Inverloch and Leongatha, it said.

It comes after a 4.1 magnitude earthquake was felt by more than 1600 people in Victoria’s high country in the early hours of August 7.

That earthquake hit at a depth of 8km about 17km northeast of Woods Point, with tremors recorded as far north as Albury in southern NSW.

There has been magnitude 3.0 earthquake at a 10km depth, with an epicentre at Sandy Point. Picture: Supplied

And in February this year a 2.6 magnitude earthquake shook Euroa, just hours after a 4.3 magnitude earthquake rattled Leongatha.

Both shakes were a far cry from the earthquake that shook Melbourne in September 2021.

That quake measured 5.9, caused several old buildings to collapse and created tremors as far away as Sydney, Dubbo and Launceston.

Head of Seismology at The University of Melbourne Dr Januka Attanayake has previously told the Herald Sun that while it seemed like there was more earthquake activity in Victoria now than in the past, that was not the case.

Science and technology had just become better at detecting the “many very tiny earthquakes” that occurred regularly, he said.

“We have a seismic record of about 200 years and we don’t see an increase in activity … overall, if you take a time average seismic rate, we are not experiencing more events,” Dr Attanayake said.

The report from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre. Picture: Supplied

The earthquake hit at 7.54pm. Picture: Supplied

“However, because we have put more and more seismometers on the ground, we are recording more and more smaller events. For example, if you look at Gippsland region prior to 2017, we recorded about 150 to 200 events a year but since 2017, the University of Melbourne has developed a pretty sophisticated high seismic network in that area and now we are recording about 450 events a year.”

Dr Attanayake said last year scores of fault lines lay below Victoria, with most concentrated in the south west and east of the state, and Bendigo also a hotspot.

And any more fractures in the earth’s crusts — or faults — existed in Victoria than scientists had managed to map.

We’re still in the process of mapping all the fault lines, it’s an ongoing process,” he said.