The famous Great Barrier Reef in Australia was hit by an earthquake with a 5.2 magnitude last Saturday. This event is such an unusual thing to happen in the said spot but laid back locals said they had barely felt the tremors.
The quake was spotted about 124 Kilometers southeast of Townsville at 3.30 in the afternoon local time (0530 GMT). It has a dept of 10 kilometers, according to the United States Geographical Survey.
Rumbling was felt in some parts of Great Barrier Reef, Magnetic Island, and Mainland. One of the Hoteliers at All Season Resort said that the quake briefly interrupted a wedding ceremony on the beach.
She said that it wasn’t that major, the guest only felt some bit of shake from the ground but no-one fell over and nothing was damaged.
“We are alive and well at the moment and please God that’s how we are going to stay”, she said.
Luckily there were no damaged reported in the incident and authorities did not issue any tsunami alert.
People in Townsville, a tropical city known for easy going lifestyle said that they hadn’t felt anything.
A local Molly Malones Irish Bar told the AFP that they are all pretty fine and it take something more than that to shake them up.
According to David Jepsen a seismologist in Australia GeoScience, he said that the epicentre of the quake was spotted 60 kilometers west of Bowen town, which is said to be the path of Top-intensity Cyclone Yasi earlier this year.
Jepsen also added that it is a good thing that Bowen is a sparsely populated town that’s why they couldn’t see much in the way.
As records show, Australia is a place where earthquakes are rarely to happen because its land m(–foul word(s) removed–) is distance from the boundary of the Indo-Australian Tectonic Plate.
Jepsen said that such kind of quake with 5.2 magnitudes is statistically happened just once in a year on average. Australia had experienced stillness in recent years.