By Tanya Steele
A 2.5 magnitude minor earthquake occurred in East Melbourne on Tuesday 16 May at 11.15 am with an epicentre in Ferntree Gully.
Jonathan Griffin, a senior seismologist at Geoscience Australia, said the majority of reports were received from Croydon, Ferntree Gully up into the Dandenong Ranges and a few other nearby suburbs.
“It was a relatively shallow quake, with a depth of about 4 km, which probably contributed to quite a number of people feeling it,” he said.
By 1pm on 17 May over 140 people had reported the quake with a ‘felt report’ lodged with Geoscience Australia felt report system.
Dr Griffin said earthquakes of this magnitude are compared to the larger rumbling of a truck by people who experience them.
“You might get that little shake going through your house, that is what you feel,” he said.
Dr Griffin said that oftentimes people will also hear a thunder like sound or rumble for shallow earthquakes,
“As the ground shaking travels through the ground and along the surface of the ground, that shaking gets transferred into the air and becomes sound waves,” he said.
In the event of a quake, Dr Griffin recommends people drop, cover and hold.
“Get down and if you can get under something like a table, if you can’t get under anything cover your head with your hands and hold onto something if you can to give you stability during the shaking,”
Victoria SES stated via social media they did not receive any requests for assistance post the quake and they also had many people commenting on their posts about the earthquake and responses were varied as to who felt it and who didn’t.
Geoscience Australia has a network of seismic monitors they maintain across the country and Dr Griffin said the organisation took some time to look at the quake and review that it was actually an earthquake.
“As we reviewed that we were able to see the felt reports coming in and it was nice to get that community input as well,” he said.
