Aftershocks after 5.0 magnitude earthquakes left thousands without power
Residents on Australia’s east coast have been hit by tremors after a magnitude 5.0 earthquake left thousands of people without power just 24 hours earlier.
At around 6.30am on Saturday, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck 8km north of the town of Denman, in the Hunter region of New South Wales, at a depth of 9.6km.
The quake came just hours after a 3.2 magnitude quake struck the nearby town of Muswellbrook at 1.10am, followed by another 2.5 magnitude quake at 2.30am.
Experts warned that aftershocks would follow Friday’s larger quake, with Australians living more than 170km away in Sydney reporting feeling tremors.
“Has anyone else felt another quake?” a woman wrote on a Facebook page for residents of Sydney’s eastern suburbs at 4.45pm on Saturday.
Hadi Ghasemi, senior seismologist at Geoscience Australia, previously warned that aftershocks would be felt throughout the day on Saturday.
“Generally the biggest aftershocks occur in the earliest stages of the series,” he told Nine’s Weekend Today.
‘As time passes, the frequency of aftershocks also decreases.’
Residents on Australia’s east coast have been hit by powerful tremors after a magnitude 5.0 earthquake (shown on map) left thousands of people without power
Lavis Mitre 10 in Muswellbrook posted a photo of items strewn across the aisles after a 5.0 magnitude earthquake struck the town of Denman just after 12pm on Friday
Just over 24 hours earlier, mining operations were temporarily halted after an earthquake struck the Mount Arthur Coal Mine just outside Muswellbrook at 12.01pm on Friday.
A BHP spokesman said several miners were injured while underground.
“A few team members at Mt Arthur Coal required first aid due to minor injuries from falling objects, but fortunately no one was seriously injured,” he said.
‘Inspections are being conducted on all areas of the site before we safely resume operations. We have offered our support to Muswellbrook Shire Council.’
A power outage hit an area in South Muswellbrook with the NSW State Emergency Service received 11 calls about minor damage to homes and reports of minor damage to infrastructure in Maitland and Muswellbrook.
At 2:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon, the largest aftershock measured 2.9.
The quakes were felt hours away in western and south-western Sydney, on the Central Coast and in towns in the Hunter region.
According to Stuart Clark, a geophysicist at UNSW, the quake was the largest of six to hit the area, a major coal mining region, in the past 50 years.
“It’s slightly smaller than the Newcastle earthquake and there was another one of magnitude 5.3 in 1994,” Associate Professor Clark said.
‘The cause is the compressive forces on the continent, but the possible trigger is coal mining.’
He warned of aftershocks over the next two days, saying there could be “a cluster of aftershocks that are typically somewhat smaller than this one.”
“They don’t have to be hit by major earthquakes, but they could be.”
The remains of a chimney that collapsed on Friday in Muswellbrook, in the Hunter region of New South Wales
Stones can be seen on the pavement in front of houses in Muswellbrook on Friday
Muswellbrook Borough Council Mayor Steven Reynolds said he was in bed when the house shook violently.
“I’ll tell you, I thought the roof was going to come in on me,” Mayor Reynolds said.
“You couldn’t miss it, it was big. We have the mine explosions here and I knew straight away it wasn’t something like that. I thought for sure it was an earthquake and there could have been serious damage.”
Sydney residents also reported experiencing vibrations.
“My apartment just moved… who else felt it (an earthquake) in Sydney?!,” one person wrote.
‘Was there just an earthquake in Sydney, or did my building just shake for fun?!’
A third said: ‘I just felt a real earthquake in Sydney. The TV on the wall shook, as did the bed I was sitting on. Crazy!’
