Eve Lamb
The earthquake that rattled Castlemaine residents Wednesday morning was the biggest onshore quake to rock the state in the past two centuries.
“Quite extraordinary,” said excited Sandon-based local seismologist Gary Gibson, interviewed by the Mail soon after the earthquake hit at about 9.15am.
“It’s about 5.8 on the Richter scale,” confirmed Mr Gibson who is principal research fellow in seismology with the University of Melbourne.
“It’s the biggest earthquake for Victoria and New South Wales to happen on shore in the last 200 years that we know about.
“There have been a few bigger off shore quakes but this on shore quake is considerably bigger than the Newcastle quake of ’89.
“It has caused a wall to collapse in Chapel Street in Melbourne which means the wall was probably very fragile already.
“Lots of people have felt it strongly as far east as Merimbula and there have been 100 reports of it being felt in tall buildings from people in Adelaide.”
The epicentre had been identified as being in the middle of the eastern highlands – “about half way between Mount Buller to the north, and Morwell to the south,” Mr Gibson told the Mail. Read more in today’s Mail…