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Australia struck by 5.5 earthquake, no injuries

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Australia was shaken by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake on Wednesday, with some slight damage being caused outside the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, the Washington Times reports. The quake was the largest to affect Australia since a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck the town of Broome in Western Australia in 2019.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement that Wednesday’s quake had caused no injuries, the Times reported. However, the Seismology Research Centre said in a statement it was the largest recorded in the history of Victoria.

The quake struck 80 miles northeast of Melbourne, at a depth of six miles, the Times said. Some damage was done to chimneys, facades, and older buildings, and a hospital lost power.

Dr. Trevor Allen, a seismologist with Geoscience Australia, told ABC News that Australia is actually shaken by small earthquakes every day, and by larger quakes over 5.5 magnitude about twice a year. Nevertheless, Allen said, Australia is extremely unlikely to see massive 8-9 magnitude earthquakes. “We don’t have faults that are large enough or active enough to have these really big earthquakes we see on the plate boundaries,” Allen.

“In general, the rates of earthquakes we see here in Australia and in other stable tectonic regions are roughly about a hundred times less than that of areas on plate boundaries,” Allen added.