Two minor earthquakes strike near Lake Eildon in Victoria overnight

Residents near Lake Eildon have been woken by tremors overnight after two minor earthquakes struck in quick succession.

Lake Eildon, Donvale. Picture: Beverley May

Residents in regional Victoria have been hit with two minor earthquakes on Saturday morning.

Locals near Lake Eildon may have woken to the 2.6 magnitude tremor that first hit the area at about 3.50am.

A second 2.9 magnitude shock was recorded at about 4.15am.

“Geoscience Australia have so far received about 20 felt reports from this earthquake, some as far away as the eastern suburbs of Melbourne” Trevor Allen, Senior Seismologist at Geoscience Australia said.

“A small magnitude 2.4 foreshock occurred about 27 minutes prior to the main event, and this was reported ‘felt’ by local residents.”

Since the start of the year, Geoscience Australia has recorded a total of seven small earthquakes in Victoria.

There have been a total of seven small earthquakes in Victoria in 2022. Picture: Linda Carter

“The largest being a magnitude 3.0 aftershock of the magnitude 5.9 earthquake in the Victorian highlands in September, and another magnitude 3.0 event near Korumburra on the 26 February,” he said.

The permanent high precision seismic network that has been installed in Victoria’s Gippsland region is able to detect about 400 earthquakes every year and provides key information to protect people and infrastructure

“These are very sensitive instruments that record small ground vibrations that are generated by earthquakes.

“However, following the large event in September last year, we are working with local Aboriginal communities to establish new monitoring sites in the region, both to improve our monitoring capabilities, and also for community education and outreach,” he said.

100 monitoring systems are currently scattered throughout the country, the national-scale seismic network has been put in place to identify seismic hot spots.