Earthquakes in the Canberra Region - Geoscience Australia

Earthquakes in the Canberra RegionFigure 11. Isoseismal map of the magnitude ML 3.0 Orroral Valley earthquake of 19August 1998. The red triangle is the epicentre. Reported MM intensity values andisoseismal contours are shown; intensity values of 0 indicate the earthquake was not felt.Despite its remote location, the earthquake was felt weakly by a few people in theinnermost North Canberra suburbs and strongly, although briefly, by some in the southernsuburbs, where alarmed Garran residents apparently ran out into the street. Li andMcEwin summarised a selection of the approximately 100 reports as follows:Kambah: Felt by all in the house, windows rattled, strong vibrations felt within the house.Also heard loud, rumbling sound.Curtin: Felt by all five of us and sounded like a low rumble as if a very large truck wasgoing past.Gordon: We heard it coming then it shook the house but the windows didn’t rattle, thefurniture, book shelf did.Wanniassa: Huge 20 sec shudder – the ground vibrated and made a thundering noise,wasn’t aware of the windows rattling but my daughter’s bed shook.Tharwa: Heard then felt big rumble, everything rattled, foundations shook.On 31 December 1998, a magnitude ML 3.2 earthquake occurred at 5.11 pm local timebetween Bredbo and Michelago, just east of the ACT border. Although it was felt moststrongly east of the ACT from Burra to Bredbo, there were a number of felt reports fromthe southern part of Canberra and from Cooma. The report and isoseismal map (Figure12) were compiled by Kevin McCue.14