The biggest earthquake out of a ‘swarm’ of quakes that have been rattling the Mid North Coast since January 19, has struck local towns with reports of cracks in house walls at local residences and damage sustained to a local business as a result.
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At around 1.28pm January 24, a 4.2 magnitude earthquake occurred in the ocean near Urunga.
The earthquake was the largest since a 3.3 magnitude earthquake was recorded by a tracking station in Bellingen at around 7pm January 23.
One local reported damage to her house walls, while a business in South West Rocks has sustained damage to its shop. However, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has said there is no Tsunami threat to Australia as a result of the quake.
While some of the earthquakes have been too small to be located accurately by Geoscience Australia instruments, some of the earthquakes that were recorded by tracking stations include:
- Jan 19, 10:10am, 2.5ML, near Macksville NSW
- Jan 21, 1:37pm, near Macksville NSW, 2.3 ML
- Jan 22, 20:58, near Macksville NSW, 3.0 ML
- Jan 22, 6:55pm, near Macksville NSW, 2.2 ML
- Jan 22, 7:14pm, near Macksville NSW, 2.0 ML
- Jan 22, 8.36pm, near Macksville NSW, 3.1 ML
- Jan 23, 2am, near Mackdville NSW, 2.5 ML
- Jan 23, 2:00pm, Dorrigo, NSW, 2.2ML
- Jan 23, 5:59pm, near Macksville NSW, 2.3 ML
- Jan 23, 7pm, Bellingen NSW, 3.3 ML
- Jan 23, 9:16pm, SW of Bellingen NSW, 3.1 ML
- Jan 24, 3.00am, Dorrigo NSW, 2.0ML
- Jan 24, Coffs Harbour, North Coast, 4.2 ML
Speaking to the Argus, senior seismologist at Geoscience Australia Hugh Glanville said it is unlikely the quakes will stop any time soon.
“Given the current activity residents are likely to feel more earthquakes occurring as there’s no reason for us to suspect that activity will stop. While it’s rare and none of these earthquakes have been big, there is always a chance that a bigger earthquake can occur.”
“We don’t know if that will happen, but there’s always a chance so we always like to encourage people to get educated,” he said.
Mr Glanville said the cause of the earthquakes is unknown.
“There hasn’t been a trigger for these particular events. Australia generally gets a decent amount of earthquakes per year. For example, in 2016 there were 123 earthquakes recorded by us in NSW so it’s quite regularly that we get earthquakes in Australia and NSW as a whole.
“Those are generally small to medium in size but sometimes there are bigger ones. We haven’t had many in this local area in a while and it is quite sporadic and random in nature.
“Australian plates move northwards and when the plates build up a bit of stress along the continent this stress is released in the form of earthquakes. We do get a concentration of earthquakes along eastern Australia as that region is both newer geologically and has had more recent active faulting.
“So we have quite a lot of earthquakes up near the eastern seaboard, near Melbourne, all the way up through the snowy mountains and north of the ACT and then up through Muswellbrook, past Tamworth and then it just keeps going. Recently, just over the last year, there’s been some earthquakes up near Queensland.”
Mr Glanville advised locals to continue reporting tremors via via www.ga.gov.au as Geoscience Australia continues to monitor the situation.
For information on what to do in the event of a major earthquake locals can see: https://www.ses.vic.gov.au/get-ready/quakesafe/what-to-do-in-an-earthquake
What to do in the event of a major earthquake:
