Areas of the Queensland yesterday experienced a 5.8 magnitude tremor, Queensland’s largest in 20 years.
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On Friday, residents and tourists at Airlie Beach woke to a magnitude three quake that occurred nearby at 7.37am. Townsville resident John Towning said the shaking lasted for about six to seven seconds. It led to evacuations of buildings in Cairns and Townsville.
Had the epicentre of Thursday’s quake been on land it may have had the potential to do more damage than the Newcastle natural disaster in the late 1980s that claimed 13 lives, he said. The series of earthquakes was actually in a very similar locations to a series of earthquakes that occurred west of Bowen in 2011, which including a magnitude 5.3 tremor.
A US Geological Survey (USGS) maps shows the location of a 5.7 magnitude natural disaster striking east-northeast of Bowen.
Bathgate’s colleague Hugh Glanville, meanwhile, told news.com.au that the event was the “biggest natural disaster in Queensland in 20 years”.
‘We had an natural disaster in Northern Territory earlier which was 6.1 and that was the largest quake in 20 years and it has certainly been an active 12 months for earthquakes in Australia’.
Jonathan Bathgate, senior seismologist for Geoscience Australia and a man who must surely be having the most exciting day of his life right now, told the ABC that the quake alert centre in Canberra had received close to 1,000 reports. However, with five significant events since February 2015, Dr Bathgate suggests things have been more active than usual.
A 5.7 magnitude natural disaster struck off northeast coastline of Australia on Thursday, rattling popular tourist towns stretching across more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
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This causes stress to build up, which is released by earthquakes that Mr Bathgate said could not be predicted.
