Queensland was rocked by two large quakes Saturday. The first, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake struck early afternoon, followed by another 5.2 just over an hour later.
Both quakes follow a 5.3 magnitude event on Thursday
The coast of Queensland has been hit by eight earthquakes altogether in just three days.
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A senior seismologist said the initial quake struck at 1:38pm on Saturday, with its epicentre 110 kilometres due east of Fraser Island at a depth of 10 kilometres.
Todays quakes follow a 5.3 eathquake which struck the state’s south-east on Thursday, one of the largest ever recorded in the region.
The quake is the strongest in almost a century and Geoscience Australia has warned more earthquakes may follow.
Courier mail reports: Geoscience Australia seismologist Dr Andrea Thom said while earthquakes often occurred in “clusters’’, the high level of activity was unusual for this part of the world.
“Generally we see the magnitude of earthquakes going down but it appears Thursday was a foreshock to today,’’ she said.
“We can definitely expect to feel more tremors and it is possible we could still be in for something bigger still.’’
She warned coast residents should be vigilant because “these events can cause tsunami’’.
Generally an earthquake needs to be more than 6.5 in magnitude to cause a tsunami.
Gold Coast and Brisbane residents have reported feeling tremors
“I was just sitting in my chair and it started shaking — I thought ‘my washing machine doesn’t shake that much’,” a Pimpama man said.
“Everyone went out on to the street to look around and see what happened,” he said.
Geoscience Australia says this afternoon’s first earthquake was more than 10 times the intensity than one recorded earlier this week.
“We’re looking at an earthquake which was 10-15 times bigger in terms of intensity,” a spokesman said.
Delays are expected on the Caboolture and Sunshine Coast train lines as trains run at a reduced speed in case of track damage caused by the quake.
