Children flee as quake hits Kalgoorlie

Children flee as quake hits Kalgoorlie

www.abc.net.au

Hundreds of school children were evacuated from classrooms after a 5.0-magnitude earthquake hit the West Australian Goldfields city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder this morning.

Geoscience Australia says the earthquake hit one to two kilometres south of the Kalgoorlie city centre in Boulder about 8:20am. Ambulance officers have taken a man and a woman to hospital with minor injuries. They are both in a stable condition.

Residents are being warned to prepare for aftershocks, but GeoScience Australia's Da

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Adelaide rocked by earth tremor

Apparently lots of damage has been done. I was actually here when it happened and was asleep but it woke me up pretty quickly. I felt my bed shaking and thought it was a dream but I quickly realised it was an earthquake. It was pretty loud too.

Listening to the announcers on the radio station, there has been quite a lot of damage, most of it minor though. Apparently a house caught on fire, something to do with electricity and the earthquake caused something to dislodge or whatever, I'm not quite sure on the details. But the emergency services are fairly busy at the moment. Heard a few firetrucks go past.

There's quite some damage done to a few schools and hotels. Apparently there's even a bit of a crack in one of the roads in Boulder.

There was a fairly big quake last year here, but not as big as this one. The one last year was 2.9 on the Richter scale, but this one was a 5.2.

What I find weird though is this:

David Jepsen, a senior seismologist with Geoscience Australia, told ABC Local Radio the earthquake was felt up to several hundred kilometres from where it struck.

"This is the largest earthquake that we've had in the region since we've recorded earthquakes here," he said.

"We can't rule out the effects of what the mining has done."

bolding mine

I thought it a bit weird to mention this. My Dad thought it was weird too that this man would say this. Does this mean that the mining here in Kalgoorlie-Boulder somehow had a hand in the earthquake??? If true, what would it mean for the mining companies???

Another thing, this earthquake comes only three days after the 3.8 magnitude earthquake in Adelaide. I've put a link to thread on the Adelaide earthquake by SilentShadow.

By the way, this is my first breaking news thread, so I'm not really sure how to go about this, hope it's sufficient

www.abc.net.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Sparkly_Eyed777


wow, bout time AU got some action. We very rarely get earthquakes and only on the weekend Adelaide got a rumble of only 3.7. Edit to add, sure we get them all the time, but they are nominal in size.

However, when I was at Arkaroola, we had a siesmegraph and looking through the folder (where the dailys are kept) there were some big ones that did not even get a mention on the news!!! I would go into work and I'd be like... cool check out the graph! More thrilling than scarey.



[edit on 19-4-2010 by Thurisaz]

Thanks for informing us Americans on this. Our media is a bit isolationist.
I agree though that it's weird that mining was mentioned in a way that hints it was a catalyst to the quake.

reply to post by Sparkly_Eyed777


Very interesting he mentions the mining. Theres no doubt that it weakens the geography, and where they are mining must have been quite weak already. I do hope everything is well with you and yours, but you should brace for more. We are no doubt entering into an interesting time period for earth, and more destructive natural phenomena will no doubt follow. It must have been a very shallow quake to shake the way it was described. Thank you for the information. Good luck and best regards and STAY SAFE!

[edit on 19-4-2010 by Enigami]

reply to post by Thurisaz


Yeah, there doesn't seem to be very many earthquakes here in Aus, well, not serious ones as compared to other places in the world.

Here's some more info on the quake here
Just looking at that list there are quite a few earthquakes that have happened this year, pretty amazing

Earthquake Details
Magnitude 5.2
Date-Time Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 00:17:08 UTC
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 08:17:08 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 30.530°S, 121.653°E
Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Distances 30 km (20 miles) NE of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Australia
225 km (140 miles) SSW of Laverton, Western Australia, Ausgralia
340 km (210 miles) ENE of Merredin, Western Australia, Australia
575 km (360 miles) ENE of PERTH, Western Australia, Australia

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13.3 km (8.3 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters NST= 18, Nph= 18, Dmin=614.5 km, Rmss=0.87 sec, Gp=162°,
M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=6
Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)


Event ID us2010vhab

only the children fled?

everyone else just chilled out?

Chamberf=6 and Enigami; yeah it is interesting that he mentioned mining. I know that people always joke around that one day the whole town might collapse because of the mining, but I never thought that it would actually happen. Now I'm not so sure haha.

There wasn't any damage where I live. The only thing is my cat is still scared! My dad said she was near a window just looking outside, but as soon as she heard the earthquake she rushed to the lounge room and hid under the lounge (couch). Thanks for the well wishes by the way, it's appreciated.

So far there have only been a few aftershocks, nothing that big really, thank goodness.

By the way, the title of the news article has changed to "Children evacuated as quake hits Kalgoorlie", do I need to edit the original post?

Originally posted by Enigami
reply to post by Sparkly_Eyed777

 

Very interesting he mentions the mining. Theres no doubt that it weakens the geography, and where they are mining must have been quite weak already. I do hope everything is well with you and yours, but you should brace for more. We are no doubt entering into an interesting time period for earth, and more destructive natural phenomena will no doubt follow. It must have been a very shallow quake to shake the way it was described. Thank you for the information. Good luck and best regards and STAY SAFE!

[edit on 19-4-2010 by Enigami]

Many minerals deposits are laid down in fractures caused by earthquakes.
especially primary gold and silver deposits.
They are found where hot hydrothermal materials have flowed through fractures in the earths crust. IE earthquake faults.
mining causing earthquakes unlikely.
Its the old Maxim that you look for valuable minerals where the earth is most geologically active.
www.nr.gov.nl.ca...&en/geosurvey/education/gold.stm
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

This is why Calif and Nevada are so rich in gold and silver.

reply to post by hautmess


Lol, apparently...

Seriously though, I'm guessing they put the emphasis on children because they were the most at risk, what with the schools being damaged and all and having to evacuate them.

Originally posted by ANNED
mining causing earthquakes unlikely.

So the mining probably didn't have anything to do with the earthquake? Because that's what I was thinking. But I'm still wondering what this means:

Originally posted by Sparkly_Eyed777

David Jepsen, a senior seismologist with Geoscience Australia, told ABC Local Radio the earthquake was felt up to several hundred kilometres from where it struck.

"This is the largest earthquake that we've had in the region since we've recorded earthquakes here," he said.

"We can't rule out the effects of what the mining has done."

bolding mine

Edit for spelling mistakes and grammar

[edit on 20/4/2010 by Sparkly_Eyed777]

reply to post by Sparkly_Eyed777


It is definitely unlikey, but certainly not impossible. BTW thanks for the info ANNED. And your signature made me laugh!

reply to post by Enigami


Hmm, ok then, thanks for clearing it up a little for me. I suppose more information is needed. I guess if the mining being done is partly to blame, then I'll be hearing about it in the future. Then again, there's a chance that I won't, considering there's a lot of money in mining here.

Edit to elaborate a bit more



[edit on 20/4/2010 by Sparkly_Eyed777]

There was also another earthquake in Melbourne, Victoria that I'm only really finding about now. I don't really watch the news or read the newspaper though, and I usually get my news online at ninemsn or ATS.

Small quake shakes Melbourne

The quake in Melbourne was a 3.2 on the Richter scale.

I have to admit, I really find this unusual to be honest. The quake in Adelaide was the biggest in at least 20 years and the one here in Kal was the biggest one in at least 50 years.

reply to post by Sparkly_Eyed777


Would you say recently the number of earth quakes here have increased? I have only really paid attention to earthquakes over the past few years here as I am in my early 20s, but it does seem quite unusual recently. I am trying to find a graph of Australias history with quakes but only find this link, here, but I think that increase in the graph is probably due to the internet news boom.

As for the mining remark, quite strange indeed. But considering the size of the mining industry out there, if it was the cause.. somehow, I doubt they would admit it.

Im going to start posting this in every earthquake thread-

STOP making earthquake threads over every single earthquake?!
for starters, no one can say the amount of earthquakes is "unusual". No one here has been alive long enough in geological terms to know whats usual and unusual for the earth!
Secondly, nothing new or of importance is ever discussed in these threads. its usually de-escalates into haarp and earthquake weapons arguements.

so lets all grow up a little, and stop posting a thread for every freaking earthquake.

Whats so important about a 5.0 exactly?

If you care about earthquakes so much, go here earthquake.usgs.gov...

and download the earthquake RSS feed!

reply to post by Thurisaz


what are you talking about melbourne has been hit by more earthquakes in 1 year than in the last 5.

Originally posted by VonDoomen
Im going to start posting this in every earthquake thread-

STOP making earthquake threads over every single earthquake?!
for starters, no one can say the amount of earthquakes is "unusual". No one here has been alive long enough in geological terms to know whats usual and unusual for the earth!
Secondly, nothing new or of importance is ever discussed in these threads. its usually de-escalates into haarp and earthquake weapons arguements.

so lets all grow up a little, and stop posting a thread for every freaking earthquake.

Whats so important about a 5.0 exactly?

If you care about earthquakes so much, go here earthquake.usgs.gov...

and download the earthquake RSS feed!

As you are not a moderator I suggest you NOT tell people what they can and can't post!

Firstly, we are allowed to speculate on the usual or unusuality of earthquakes if we wish.
This is the nature of the human being, to question and hopefully be answered by someone a little more in the know than we are.

Secondly, if you don't find anything new or important in these threads then you are not reading them properly.

A 5.0 is quite important here in Australia as we don't get them very often.

How about lets YOU grow up a little and don't read earthquake threads if you don't like them!

.

reply to post by VonDoomen


Get over it.

Maybe if you'd actually learn a little about the history of Australia and earthquakes, especially of that magnitude, you'd realize it IS a big deal here in Australia - and as such, may be a big deal in the bigger schemes of things for the planet as well... who knows?



[edit on 20/4/10 by Navieko]