Two separate earthquakes rattles hundreds of residents across Melbourne and Adelaide overnight just hours apart
Hundreds of residents across two major Aussie cities woke up to overnight tremors on Tuesday following separate earthquakes just hours apart.
Melbourne was hit by a magnitude 2.8 quake about 12.30am with the epicentre located outside Mount Dandenong in the Olinda Area, 44km east of the city.
Geoscience Australia confirmed more than 700 Victorians reported the unexpected tremors with some feeling the effects as far as Jam Jerrup in the south and Craigieburn in the north.
Just less than two hours after the first quake, east of Adelaide was hit by a magnitude of 2.7 earthquake about 2am.
The epicentre was located in the Adelaide Hills, northeast of Mount Barker near Nairne, at a depth of 9km.
Up to 200 residents reported the incident to Geoscience Australia mostly from in and around the Adelaide region.
Owners of the Big Rocking Horse, a tourist attraction located in Gumeracha took to social media to report feeling the quake.
'Not even an earthquake could make Wal The Big Rocking Horse rock,' they posted.
'It was a rolling rumble sound and we didn't feel the earth move.
'Checking on all our animals now to make sure they aren't spooked.'
Seismology Research Centre chief scientist Adam Pascale told FIVEAA Radio earthquakes of this small degree has been occurring almost every year around the same time in the Adelaide Hills region.
'The pattern shows the last couple of years we've had in sort of March, April, May around, roughly around this time," he said.
'But it's not really related to seasons, I think it's just about that stress building up … the big ones started in 2022; there was a 3.7 there, and a 3.1 a bit later that month and then last year we had a, it was a 2.7 in the region, and there's been sort of small ones popping off along the way. But this is one of the larger ones this morning.'
Mr Pascale further predicted a big earthquake could be on the cards for the city.
'There's been a magnitude six in South Australia in recent history ... it's quite likely that there will be another large event sometime,' he said.
'Unfortunately, I can't predict when these things but we know that we will see an event of magnitude five or six, probably in the next 50 or 100 years.'
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