Residents in Melbourne and the northern suburbs were woken in the middle of the night as a magnitude 3.8 earthquake shook the darkness radiating out from the town of Sunbury, about 41 kilometres north west of the city.
Reports came from across the region from residents saying they had been shaken awake by the tremor. The government’s Geoscience Australia website at 9am had almost 24,320 ‘felt’ reports, most of those between Sunbury and Melbourne – this figure continues to rise.
Geoscience Australia put the time of the quake at 11.41pm and said it was rated at a magnitude of 3.8 with a depth of 2 kilometres.
Authorities warn that there could be aftershocks today.
According to the Geoscience website, earthquakes were also recorded at 1.45 am AEST in Northern Colombia with a magnitude of 5.2 and a depth of 155 km, and at 2.13am AEST in the Santa Cruz Islands Region, with a magnitude of 5.0 and a depth of 76 km.
