Residents along Queensland’s coastline experienced a 5.6 magnitude earthquake on Saturday, marking the third tremor to hit southeastern Australia in just a few days.
The federal government’s Geoscience Australia confirmed the event in Kilkivan near Gympie, about 216km north-west of Brisbane, at 9.49am.
At least 7,648 people have reported they felt the quake, which occurred at a depth of 2km, to the organisation.
Residents shocked by the earthquake leapt on social media to check in, from Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast up to Hervey Bay.
‘That was rather unnerving. The dishes rattled, the roof sounded like there were horses on it,’ a Brisbane resident said.
Another user said: ‘We just had a (5.6) magnitude earthquake on the Sunshine Coast. WTF?’
A concerned family member also said: ‘Was felt by my future daughter-in-law in Bundaberg. Her whole house shook.’
A resident from Oakhurst on the Fraser Coast shared their experience: ‘It was quite a notable shake, an unexpected moment, and although there was no damage, even our dog seemed confused about what just transpired.’
People in southeast Queensland were shocked by a 5.6 magnitude earthquake on Saturday
Mark Barton and others at Peregian Beach on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast felt the quake about 85km away.
‘We thought initially there might be some construction work gone wrong,’ he said.
‘Then the vibrations got quite strong, and stronger. The windows were rattling and the whole house was shaking, not violently but quite noticeably.’
Alarming footage shared by Higgins Storm Chasing also shared a similar experience in Caboolture in Moreton Bay.
The vibrations went on for about a minute, bringing neighbours out into the street: ‘It caused, not panic, but it caused people to be a bit scared.’
According to Adam Pascale from the Seismology Research Centre, who spoke to the Daily Mail, this quake is the largest in Queensland in the past ten years, highlighting the rarity of such events in this region.
‘We’d expect this to be felt out as far as several hundred kilometres,’ he said.
‘It’s been quite a long time since we last had one quite this large in Queensland.’
The quake is the largest in the state in a decade, according to seismologist Adam Pascale
The last similar seismic activity in Queensland occurred near K’gari, previously known as Fraser Island, in 2015 with two quakes measuring 5.6 and 5.2 consecutively, Mr. Pascale noted.
Network operator Ergon Energy said more than 11,000 customers near the epicentre were left without power following the quake.
Danny Donald from Energex has also said their crews are investigating outages near the earthquake’s epicentre.
‘In total, we’ve got around about 11,000 customers affected between the Fraser Coast, Burrum Heads, and Murgon,’ he told the ABC.
‘Hopefully, if there’s nothing broken … we should be able to get things back up and running relatively quickly.’
Queensland Police have said they are aware of an earthquake but have not received any reports of significant damage or injury.
All Brisbane city lines are running at lower speeds due to the tremor and trains have been delayed by up to 15 minutes.
The Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed there are no tsunami threats to the coast.
This earthquake follows just days after a 3.2 magnitude quake jolted thousands of Victorians early Thursday morning near the coast of Flinders.
Tremors were felt across Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula, and as far as Geelong.
Residents and tourists on Kangaroo Island were also woken by a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in the middle of the night on Wednesday.
Mr Pascale said the two events were not related as they were too far apart.
