Why yes, there was an earthquake!

As if 2020 and 2021 couldn't get any weirder... On Wednesday (22nd Sept. 2021) there was a sizable earthquake here in Melbourne.

There have been noticeable quakes here before. About 10 or 11 years ago there was a cluster of quakes, about three of them as I recall. At the time I worked on the 9th floor of a building down on St. KIlda road. One morning, the building shuddered just slightly, just long enough for one of my co-workers to say "Oh, is that an earthquake?". And that was it. I remember another when I was in a cinema at ACMI, which is semi-underground. The light fittings rattled for a few seconds. I just assumed it was a particularly heavy tram going by outside, except a number of folks quite a distance from me mentioned it on Facebook. But that's about it, they were trivial at best. They're incredibly rare in here geologically stable Australia. In my lifetime there has been exactly one quake that's actually caused deaths, and they were confined to two partly collapsed buildings. It's not like New Zealand where quakes that size are almost weekly.

This one was a proper quake. I was in the kitchen having a very late breakfast, when the whole house started shaking in a way that looked exactly like the videos that get posted online from New Zealand and Japan, where these are regular events. A security camera somewhere will catch a whole office shaking, although of course this was way less powerful. The house felt for about 30 seconds like it was being shaken from side to side like it was on ice or jelly. I stood there going "What the fuck is going on?"

Poor Pip (Mr 8 years old) was freaked out. He was swearing for a few minutes, wide eyed, and frankly I couldn't blame him. He wandered around going "What the fucking shit was that? What the fucking shit was that? Was that an earthquake?", which, to be honest, was what I was thinking. I looked outside, everything seemed to be normal. I got on facebook, and everyone I know who lives on the east coast of Australia was posting "Earthquake! Earthquake!". Which confirmed that it wasn't something weirdly localised to my place - so I relaxed after that. Pip needed a lot of reassurance but calmed down after a few minutes. And now he can say he's been in a real earthquake.

The sum total of the damage? One of my Lego minecraft bigfigs took a flying leap off a bookshelf, and now I can't find one of the pieces! It's probably under the bookshelf....

There were some wild reports of structural damage to buildings, but it turned out that all the footage being shared was one building in Pahran that lost part of it's veranda.

Possibly the best video was from the Collins Street Peregrine Falcons, who are currently sitting on four eggs. The male was on the nest at the time, and he pulls the best "WTF was that?" face, and dives off the ledge with a screech!

Watch on YouTube

Oh, there was one other amusing event at my place. I have a lovely old antique clock, a biggish thing from the 1930's, belonged to my grandfather. I usually don't run it because it rings chimes on the quarter hour, and on the hour performs a beautiful little solo for bells... all of which is bloody loud. About fifteen minutes after the quake, I heard it chiming from my study where it hangs on the wall. The quake had given just enough momentum to the pendulum to set the clock going!

And that was it. We chatted about it in a few meetings I had that day, there were meme's doing the rounds almost from the second the shaking stopped. And we go on with the latest... Lockdown...