Sixteen Thousand Felt It, and One Town Was Closest to Its Center

There is a particular vulnerability that comes with living on ground that is usually still—a vulnerability that is forgotten in the ordinary rhythms of daily life until the earth reminds us, without warning, that it is not inert. In the early hours of Saturday morning, residents of South Gippsland and the eastern reaches of Melbourne were shaken from sleep by a magnitude-4.8 earthquake centered near the town of Leongatha, about 135 kilometers southeast of the city. It was, according to Geoscience Australia, one of the strongest tremors the region has experienced in two decades .

The quake struck at 2:01 a.m. at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers, with its epicenter near the small town of Arawata, approximately 10 kilometers from Leongatha . The shaking was widely felt: by 3 a.m., Geoscience Australia had received more than 16,000 reports from people who had felt the tremor, with observations coming from as far east as Traralgon, north to Mansfield, and west to Geelong and Torquay . A magnitude-3.1 aftershock followed just under an hour later, near the same location .

Geophysicist Hadi Ghasemi told the ABC that the quake was one of the strongest the region had seen in at least two decades. "The shaking was widely felt, close to the epicenter," he said. "It was a strong shake but I don't expect any major damage" . The Victorian State Emergency Service confirmed there was no immediate threat to the community and no action was required, though residents were advised to check for hazards and be prepared for possible aftershocks .

For those who experienced it, the quake was a disorienting interruption of the night. A resident of Leongatha described it as "one of the worst I've felt," adding that the bed shook and the experience left her feeling "pretty shaky" . Another resident in Berwick, in Melbourne's southeast, wrote on social media: "It's 2am and I'm wide awake reading upstairs and my bed just shook like hell and all the brick walls felt like they were shaking around me" . In Melbourne's central business district, one person described "a long rolling quake" that lasted about 10 seconds .

The quake is classified as "moderate" on the Modified Mercalli intensity scale, where 4.0 is moderate and 5.0 is strong; at 4.8, it verged on the upper end of that range . Earthquakes of that magnitude can shake people awake, break windows, cause unstable objects to topple, and move furniture. Seismic activity in Victoria has increased since a magnitude-5.9 earthquake struck in September 2021, damaging buildings in Melbourne and reminding residents of a hazard that many had long considered remote .

The Leongatha quake came just a week after a magnitude-3.9 earthquake in Victoria's High Country, a coincidence that seismologists note is not necessarily significant but does reflect the region's moderate level of seismic activity. The area near the epicenter has experienced at least three earthquakes above magnitude 5 since 1970, suggesting that quakes of this size occur infrequently but are not unprecedented . The SES has advised anyone who felt the tremor to stay calm, check for hazards, and call 132 500 if assistance is needed.

For the residents of South Gippsland, the morning after the earthquake brought an ordinary Saturday—cool, perhaps, with the storms that had been forecast for the region still gathering offshore. The ground beneath their feet had moved, and then it had stopped. The houses still stood. The day continued. But the memory of that brief, rolling motion will linger, a reminder that the earth is not as still as it seems, and that its stillness is not a promise but a pause.

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Sources: Daily Telegraph, VicEmergency, Volcano Discovery, ABC News, The New Daily, Gold Coast Bulletin