Earthquake hits Melbourne suburb of Pakenham, shakes homes

Updated

A magnitude-2.7 earthquake has hit the south-east Melbourne suburb of Pakenham, with reports of houses shaking violently and residents hearing a loud bang.

Geoscience Australia said the quake struck at 11:39pm on Tuesday at a depth of 10 kilometres, followed by a magnitude-1.3 aftershock at 3:18am.

Residents in the area reported a loud bang and houses shaking violently.

"We just had an earthquake here in Melbourne... shook the house good," one resident posted on Twitter.

The earthquake was felt in surrounding suburbs including Berwick and Beaconsfield, and as far away as Port Melbourne.

The Victoria State Emergency Service said it had not received any reports of damage or injury.

Andrea Thom from Geoscience Australia said it received more than 300 calls from people reporting they had felt the earthquake in an area of about 50 kilometres around the epicentre of the tremor.

"They generally report hearing loud earth noises and some rattling of windows and the earth shook for some people who were a bit closer to the event," she said.

"You wouldn't expect any damage and we haven't received any reports in this regard."

Ms Thom said it was hard to know if there would be any more aftershocks.

"Aftershocks are quite common but we can't tell whether there will be any more, or even a larger event. It's just a fact of earthquakes - you can't predict [them]," she said.

"We always like hearing from the public, what they experience, so jump online to our website and let us know if you felt an event."

Last week, there was a 3.1-magnitude tremor in the area at Moe.

Topics: disasters-and-accidents, earthquake, melbourne-3000

First posted