M5.9 Mount Buller, Australia, Earthquake

Event Summary | Summary
Posting Date: September 22, 2021, 10:30:00 AM

An M5.9 earthquake with a focal depth of 10 km struck 38 km south of Mount Buller and 128.4 km east-northeast of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at 23:15 UTC on September 21 (9:15 a.m. on September 22, local time).

ALERT™ subscribers can download similar stochastic event (SSE) IDs for this event from the Downloads tab of this post. Compatible with Touchstone^® and Touchstone Re™ the SSEs were selected based on event parameters (not industry losses) and should be used only for exposures in Australia. The information provided herein is strictly confidential and is solely for the use of AIR clients; disclosure to others is prohibited unless noted in your AIR software license.

Although it was one of the largest earthquakes to strike Australia in years, this temblor has not caused significant damage nor have there been reports of serious injuries; it was followed by two aftershocks of M4.0 and M3.1. The mainshock was felt as far away as Adelaide in South Australia, 800 kilometers away, and Sydney in New South Wales, more than 900 kilometers away.

Residents of the state of Victoria were warned by authorities that they were still in danger from this earthquake—which is being referred to locally as “the Mansfield earthquake,” after its epicenter location—and that they should expect aftershocks. They were also asked to stay away from damaged buildings and other hazards and to avoid driving, except for emergencies.

At least one building, a burger restaurant, suffered some minor damage, buildings along Chapel Street were damaged, and power lines were disrupted in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia's second largest city and home to 5 million people.

As the M5.6 Newcastle earthquake in 1989 revealed, even moderate earthquakes such as this one can devastate Australia. To read more on this topic, please click here.  

This is the final ALERT planned for this event.

Event Summary | Downloads
Posting Date: September 22, 2021, 10:30:00 AM

The information provided herein is strictly confidential and is solely for the use of AIR clients; disclosure to others is prohibited.

Similar Stochastic Event IDs

Event IDs taken from our stochastic catalog that have similar characteristics as the current event.

Product	File Type	Description	Download
TOUCHSTONE / TOUCHSTONE Re	Excel (xls)	Selected set of stochastic events