Grey nomads in the West Australian Goldfields would have felt their caravans and motorhomes shake rattle and roll, courtesy of the state’s biggest earthquake in almost 30 years.
The magnitude 5.6 quake hit south-east of Norseman on Friday at 5.40pm, with tremors being felt as far afield as Perth and Esperance.
Norseman Hotel worker Angie Hogan said she fled outside the 1930s pub when the ‘bar moved’.
“The whole bar just moved … I had to run outside,” she told Perth Now. “There is no damage, but I’m still shaking. That’s biggest earthquake we’ve had.”
The earthquake’s epicentre was 16 kilometres below the Earth’s surface.
It was the biggest onshore earthquake recorded in WA since a magnitude 5.7 quake near Derby in 1988. Friday’s earthquake was comparable to the magnitude 5.6 quake which devastated Newcastle in 1989, killing 13 people.
Geoscience Australia senior seismologist Jonathan Bathgate said it was the 15th earthquake in the Norseman area since late May.
