Magnitude 4.4 earthquake shakes Townsville   




ABC News
March 2 2025

A magnitude 4.4 earthquake rattled homes in Townsville on Saturday night.

Geoscience Australia said the earthquake happened at about 9:30pm at a depth of 10 kilometres, with the tremor lasting a few seconds.

About 5,000 people between Cairns and Mackay reported to Geoscience Australia that they had felt the earthquake.

Geoscience Australia senior seismologist Dr Phil Cummins said the epicentre was between 20km and 30km south west of Townsville.


He said those who reported feeling a type of “explosion” were likely very close to the earthquake.

“If you’re very close to the earthquake, the seismic waves are very impulsive, they arrive very quickly, altogether in one big burst and there’s a lot of high frequency energy,” Dr Cummins said.

“Once the waves propagate a certain distance, they tend to get more spread out and have lower frequencies, there’s more of a rolling, maybe rumbling motion.”

According to Ergon Energy, about 4,000 properties lost power but there have been no reports of injury or significant damage.

Townsville City Council acting mayor Ann-Maree Greaney said the disaster management centre worked until midnight but did not go into emergency management.

She said preliminary inspections indicated Ross River Dam had not been impacted.

Ms Greaney said the earthquake was unexpected for the community.

“For me and I’m sure everyone else in the community, it took everyone by surprise,” she said.

“Certainly not what we were expecting on a Saturday night, following a massive rain event two weeks ago."

'Never experienced anything like it'
Townsville resident Lis Travers said she heard and felt a rumble and then a "big bang".

"My initial thought was that someone had driven into the building,"  Ms Travers said.
She said it didn't occur to her it was an earthquake until she started getting messages from others and saw the reports online.

"I had never experienced anything like it and have never thought of earthquakes in Townsville — cyclones, floods, bushfires, but not earthquakes.”

In May last year, an earthquake was reported in the Far North Queensland town of Tully at a magnitude of 2.1.

Dr Cummins said aftershocks were possible and usually occurred right after the earthquake.

“I’m hopeful that the aftershock sequences, if there was one, has already died down to where it won’t be felt,” he said.

A 3.3 magnitude earthquake was also recorded in Muswellbrook in NSW on Saturday night.