4.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Melbourne Area of Victoria

If its not floods or bushfires striking Victoria, now it is earthquakes:

FRIGHTENED Victorians were left shaken by an earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter Scale and spanning more than 200km last night.

Police were flooded with calls from hundreds of worried residents from north of Melbourne to Sale in Gippsland after the earth shook for a few seconds just after 9pm.

The epicentre hit just north of Korumburra in South Gippsland, but the earthquake was powerful enough to shake buildings and cause some residents to fall off their couches in metropolitan Melbourne.

Some homes around Korumburra and Leongatha lost power for up to 10 minutes.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there were no reports of any injuries or property damage.

Phil Cummins, duty seismologist at Geoscience Australia, which monitors earthquake activity, confirmed the tremor measured 4.6.  [News.com]

Victorians as far North as Seymour and Bendigo even felt the earthquake.

Fortunately the earthquake didn’t kill anyone or cause any damage, but it did put a scare into everyone that felt it:

Resident Kate Bruce said: “Being so close to the fire areas and having been on alert the last two to three weeks, our only thought was ‘oh my God, what now?

“My kids thought that the roof was coming off, that’s how loud it was here.”

James Sandman of Drouin town told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “We were just sitting down watching the TV and then the whole house absolutely shook.

“The foundations shook, the walls moved, they wobbled, and myself and my wife just looked at each other and we both then looked at the exits wondering ‘do we need to get out?'”

Seismologist Phil Cummins at Geoscience Australia, which monitors earthquake activity, said the quake “is unlikely to have caused any damage, except possibly some minor damage near the epicentre.”

“We are in Gippsland in Krowera, and the earth tremor sounded like an explosion here,” another resident said. “[It] felt like something very big had hit the house. Our power also went out for about eight to 10 minutes.”

Victorian State Emergency Service spokesman Allen Briggs said the service had been inundated with phone calls from the public but there had been no reports of any damage immediately after the tremor. [The Telegraph]

If anyone is wondering Australia is not known for deadly earthquakes and in fact has had only three earthquakes cause fatalities in recorded history.  The most deadly of these three earthquakes was the 1989 Newcastle earthquake that killed 13 people.