Earthquake rattles Melbourne, Australia

A second earthquake in around two weeks has rattled residents in one of the last places you’d expect to have an earthquake: Melbourne, Australia.

The quake struck at 4:30pm local time Wednesday (10:30pm US PDT) and lasted between 4-10 seconds. There is no confirmation of the scale of the quake, although Twitter users reported that it felt less severe that the last quake March 6 that recorded a 4.7 on the richter scale.

Having sat through it (oddly I didn’t feel the last one) the biggest part is the pure surprise. I’ve never felt an earthquake before, and our house in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne rattled for a good 4-5 seconds, sort of a mellow rattle. My first thought was that perhaps there had been an accident outside, but there wasn’t.

Update: quake was 4.6. Small on a global scale, but for locals, big enough to make the Melbourne Earthquake the Number One hash tag on Twitter.