Monday night earthquake hits Poowong

A MAGNITUDE 2.6 (ML) earthquake shook the Strzelecki Ranges area, between Drouin and Korumburra on Monday night, June 6, 2022.

The tremor hit at 9:12:59pm at a depth of about 10km, at a Longitude: 145.86, Latitude: -38.33, a location near Poowong East.

Publican at the Poowong Hotel, Ben Hall, was in the public bar cleaning up on Monday night when the quake happened, but he didn’t feel it.

“The wife and the daughter came in and asked: ‘did you feel that?’ They felt it in the residence but I had the TV going and the music and didn’t feel it,” Mr Hall said.

“We’ve been here 16 years so we’ve been here through some of the bigger ones, and that big one that came, we had people jumping up off the barstools and rushing about.

“I went in and got my daughter out of her bed and was ready to run out with here when it calmed down.

“But this one wasn’t anything like that.

“My wife and daughter felt it, but I missed that one.”

There have been wide reports about the quake, in Korumburra and elsewhere.

Geoscience Australia has officially recorded the incident, noting it received 32 reports locally, and others from as far away as Frankston and Morwell.

The region is well known as an earthquake hotspot.

Other notable earthquakes felt locally include:

• A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck near Moe at 8.55 pm on June 19, 2012
• A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck near Mansfield at 11.15 pm on September 21, 2021
• A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck near Korumburra at 9.55 am on March 9, 2009