People living on the coast of Queensland were shaken by a 5.6 magnitude earthquake on Saturday, the second tremor to hit the southeast of Australia in three days.
The federal government’s Geoscience Australia confirmed the event near Gympie, about 160km north-west from 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.
‘My whole house was wobbling. First quake I’ve ever felt. Not a fan,’ one user said on social media .
Another 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 Bunderburg. Her whole house shook.’
Meanwhile an Oakhurst resident on the Fraser Coast region felt the tremor and described their shock: ‘A significant shake, a WTF moment, no damage, but also left our dog to wonder what happened as well.’
People in southeast Queensland were shocked by a 5.6 magnitude earthquake on Saturday
The quake is the largest in the state in a decade, according to seismologist Adam Pascale
‘Wow, yep definitely felt it in Coolum. Thought it was a helicopter overhead shaking the building,’ another person said.
Seismology Research Centre’s Adam Pascale told the Daily Mail the event is the largest in Queensland for a decade, adding that earthquakes are ‘rarer’ in the state.
‘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 have last had one quite this large in Queensland.’
The last time there were earthquakes on this scale in the state were off Fraser Island in 2015 where two earthquakes hit magnitudes of 5.6 and 5.2 respectively, he said.
Danny Donald from Energex has 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 had any reports of major 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.
More to come.
