Another earth tremor hits Melbourne

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 18 March 2009 12:04

Science - Climate

An earth tremor was felt across Melbourne, Australia at approximately 4.30 this afternoon local time. It was the second in as many weeks.

The March 6 earthquake measured 4.7 and was the largest to occur near Melbourne in 36 years.

This afternoon's tremor was of a similar magnitude and triggered a significant amount of Twitter chatter, with #earthquake the second ranked trending topic.

Once again, the Geoscience Australia web site struggled to cope with the load, but according to the agency the magnitude was 4.6 with the epicentre once again outside Kurrumburra in the state's Gippsland region.

This time the tremor originated deeper underground - 18 km rather than the 8 km reported for the March 6 event.

Five subsequent smaller tremors - up to 3.7 - centred on Kurrumburra during the week following March 6.