Australian residents were sent into distress on Wednesday morning after a 5.9 earthquake rocked the region, which is the second-biggest quake in the nation's history, and caused the ground to shake in Melbourne.
Authorities did not receive any immediate reports of people getting injured from the incident that occurred shortly after 9:00 a.m. The earthquake had a depth of about 10 kilometers, the United States Geological Survey said in a statement. Officials reassured that there was no threat of a potential tsunami following the incident.
Powerful Earthquake in Australia
Officials recorded the epicenter of the earthquake to be south of Mount Buller, which is located roughly 90 miles northeast of Melbourne. Photographs showed the extent of the damage of the earthquake with one building in Melbourne having its bricks littered across a street.
One Melbourne woman who was a resident of Carrum Downs said that when felt the earthquake, she immediately ran out of her house in distress. During an interview, the woman said that she saw the walls of her home moving due to the strength of the quake, NBC News reported.
After the incident, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was in Washington, D.C. at the time of the quake, said that he was told there were no reports of serious injuries. "It can be a very disturbing event, an earthquake of this nature. They are very rare events in Australia, and as a result, I am sure people would have been quite distressed and disturbed," Morrison said.
The Victorian State Emergency Service's (VICSES News) Twitter account posted an update on Wednesday morning saying that the epicenter of the quake was near Mansfield in the state of Victoria. The Australian government initially recorded the incident with a magnitude of 6.0 but later downgraded it to a 5.9, which was in line with the report from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Videos captured footage of the aftermath of the earthquake and showed power lines disrupted in the central business district of Melbourne, which is the second-largest city in Australia. The footage showed residents on the streets after the earthquake sent them running into open areas, CNN reported.
Strength of the Shaking
Due to the strength of the earthquake, the shaking was felt all the way over at the city of Adelaide, located 800 kilometers west. Australia is not usually hit with earthquakes due to its position in the middle of the Indo-Australian Tectonic Plate.
The only quake stronger than the recent incident was the one in 1988 that shook Tennant Creek with a magnitude of 6.6. However, the Melbourne earthquake was stronger than the one in 1989, a magnitude of 5.6, which killed 13 people.
The incident occurred as anti-lockdown protesters were expected to rally in Melbourne on Wednesday, marking the third day of civil unrest that has resulted in rising levels of violence and police response against civilians.
The earthquake also occurred while Surgeon Sameer Thakur was performing a heart bypass operation in Geelong, which was near Melbourne. In an interview, he said that he and his team were in the crucial part of the surgery when they felt the operating table move, BBC reported.
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