Northern NSW hit by three earthquakes in nine hours
One Australian state has been hit by three separate earthquakes occurring hundreds of kilometres apart within a nine hour period. Were you in one of the towns that felt the tremors?
READING LEVEL: GREEN
Regional NSW has been hit with three earthquakes in the space of nine hours.
The first was in the Orana area 500km northwest of Sydney about 11pm Monday. The second was felt at the seismic hotspot* of Muswellbrook overnight at about 2.20am in the Hunter Valley.
Then just before 8am on Tuesday, a 3.1 magnitude quake was recorded at Bulahdelah, 100km north of Newcastle.
The Orana quake was 3.8 magnitude and 10km below the surface, but only seven people reported feeling any shakes on Geoscience Australia*.
Three hours later, the second, similar size quake was felt at Muswellbrook. The mining community regularly gets tremors and Tuesday morning’s event measured 3.7 magnitude and was just 3km deep.
In total, 132 people reported feeling the second quake, with reports ranging up to moderate and strong in the surrounding areas. Weaker shaking was felt over hundreds of kilometres, as far away as the coast.
Multiple people reported feeling the Orana quake around the town of Muswellbrook at the time of the Muswellbrook quake, possibly conflating* the two, on Geosciences Australia.
The third, Bulahdelah quake, was reportedly felt by 83 people. This quake was 9km below the Earth’s surface, and nearby reports classed the tremor as “moderate”.
Local resident Anthony said at first he thought a car had slammed into his house.
“I just heard this big bang and thought, what’s that? I raced outside thinking someone had run into the side of my house. Then I started talking to my daughter and others down the street, and they all said the same thing happened to their houses too,” he said on radio station 2GB.
Online, people said they felt alarming ruptures*.
“Jolted me off my chair,” one woman commented.
“My whole house shook,” another person said.
While earthquakes are usually a hot topic online, neither of the first two quakes generated many comments on public social media pages.
“I live in the Warren Shire and didn’t feel a thing!” one woman said from an area near the first quake.
“Can see my home town but didn’t feel anything,” said another on a post about the Orana quake.
POLL
GLOSSARY
- seismic hotspot: an area known for earthquakes
- Geoscience Australia: a government agency that monitors earthquakes
- conflating: combining the two accidentally
- ruptures: when the ground breaks or moves during an earthquake
EXTRA READING
Why some buildings fall in quakes
What is at the centre of the Earth?
Largest quake in 120 years shakes Melbourne
QUICK QUIZ
1. Which of the three earthquakes had the strongest magnitude?
2. Which had the weakest magnitude?
3. Which earthquake occurred closest to the earth’s surface?
4. Which quake was reported as being felt by the most people?
5. On which site can people report earthquakes?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Tremor graph
Graph the information contained in the Kids News article to represent the magnitude, location and reports of each of the three quakes.
Which graph would best visualise this data?
How are you going to represent it?
Create your graph below.
Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Mathematics, Science, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking
2. Extension
What do you already know about earthquakes and what triggers the tremors?
Share your knowledge with a person closest to you to see if you can add to your knowledge.
Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking
VCOP ACTIVITY
BAB it!
Show you have read and understood the article by writing three sentences using the connectives “because’’, “and”, and “but” (BAB). Your sentences can share different facts or opinions, or the same ones but written about in different ways.