Werribee sits on the western fringe of metropolitan Melbourne, a rapidly growing suburb in the City of Wyndham that most residents associate with open farmland, the Werribee Open Range Zoo, and the steady hum of suburban expansion.
Few would think of it as earthquake country. But over the past decade, the ground beneath Werribee and the broader western suburbs has shaken on multiple occasions — sometimes gently, sometimes with enough force to rattle windows, jolt residents awake in the small hours, and send shockwaves across social media.
This is the story of those tremors, what caused them, and what they tell us about living in one of Australia’s most underappreciated seismic zones.
Australia: Earthquake Country in Disguise
Before examining the specific events felt in Werribee, it helps to understand the broader geological picture. Australia sits far from the major tectonic plate boundaries where most of the world’s earthquakes originate.
It lies in the interior of the Australian Plate, and the earthquakes that do occur here are known as intraplate earthquakes — caused not by plates colliding or sliding past each other, but by the slow release of stress built up deep within the continent’s ancient crust.
Seismic sensors record around 100 earthquakes of magnitude 3 and above across the continent every year. Southeastern Australia, which includes Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, is a region where smaller magnitude events are relatively common.
The old, cold, and rigid Australian crust also transmits seismic waves with exceptional efficiency, meaning tremors can be felt at far greater distances than they would be in geologically younger, hotter regions such as California or Japan.
Based on historical data, Victoria experiences about 35 earthquakes per year of magnitude 2.0 or higher, with larger quakes above magnitude 4 occurring roughly every one to two years somewhere in the state.
While Werribee itself does not sit on a known active fault, since 1950 the area within a 150km radius of Werribee has experienced a total of 57 recorded earthquakes, with an annual average of fewer than one notable event and the strongest recorded being a magnitude 5.9 in 2021.
The Quiet Years: 2015–2020
For much of the period between 2015 and 2020, seismic activity that residents of Werribee could actually feel was sparse.
Victoria’s earthquake catalogue does record ongoing low-level activity throughout this period — micro-tremors below magnitude 2.0 and occasional events in the 2–3 range — but most of these occur in regional areas to the north or east and are too small or too distant to register with residents in the western suburbs.
The region’s relative quiet during these years was consistent with Victoria’s long-term patterns. Based on records over the past 57 years, seismologists estimate that a magnitude 5 or greater earthquake occurs somewhere in Victoria every 8 to 10 years on average.
Between major events, life in suburbs like Werribee goes on largely uninterrupted by any sense that the ground might move. This quiet, however, can breed complacency — a fact that seismologists have repeatedly cautioned against.
There were isolated smaller events during this period that may have been felt by particularly attentive residents in the outer western suburbs.
Geoscience Australia’s earthquake catalogue and the Seismology Research Centre’s records show scattered magnitude 2–3 events in Victoria during these years, but none of sufficient size or proximity to have produced widespread community reports in Werribee specifically.
September 22, 2021 — The Mansfield Earthquake: The One Everyone Remembers
If there is a single seismic event that defined the past decade for Victorians — and for Werribee residents in particular — it was the earthquake of 22 September 2021.
An earthquake struck approximately 53 kilometres SSE of the town of Mansfield, in the Victorian Alps, at 9:15am local time, measuring 5.9 on the moment magnitude scale.
It caused minor structural damage in parts of Melbourne and left one person injured, and was also felt in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, and Tasmania.
The earthquake was the most powerful recorded in Victoria since 1966, when a magnitude 5.7 quake was recorded at Mount Hotham.
Its epicentre was approximately 130 kilometres northeast of Melbourne — and roughly 160 kilometres from Werribee — but the efficiency with which the Australian plate transmits seismic energy meant the shaking was felt across the entire metropolitan area, including the western suburbs.
Over 40,000 reports of people feeling the earthquake were recorded, some from as far away as the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, and Tasmania.
Tall residential towers swayed, items fell from shelves, and Melburnians who had never experienced an earthquake before found themselves running into doorways or out onto the street.
More than 35,000 people were left without power across metropolitan Melbourne and some regional parts, and minor building damage was recorded in the suburbs of Kensington, Ascot Vale, Prahran, Parkdale, Elsternwick, West Melbourne and Balwyn.
For Werribee, sitting on the western fringe and separated from the epicentre by the full breadth of Melbourne, the shaking was real but generally mild — classified by the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale as light to moderate.
Residents reported the characteristic slow rolling sensation that distinguishes distant intraplate earthquakes from the sharper jolts associated with shallow, nearby quakes.
Social media lit up with reports from across the western suburbs, with Werribee, Hoppers Crossing, and Wyndham residents among the thousands filing “felt reports” with Geoscience Australia.
The earthquake was followed by six aftershocks, with the first being a magnitude 5.5 event at 9:40am, followed by a magnitude 4.0 at 9:55am and a magnitude 3.1 at 10:15am.
The aftershock sequence was expected to last several weeks to several months. On 4 October 2021, a 2.9-magnitude tremor was felt in the Victorian town of Rawson, and the following day two further tremors of magnitude 3.0 occurred, believed to be linked to the earthquake two weeks prior.
The 2021 event shook loose a wider public conversation about earthquake preparedness in Victoria.
It was, as seismologists pointed out, both a reminder of the state’s real seismic hazard and a stroke of extraordinary luck — had the epicentre been 130 kilometres closer, under or near a densely populated area, the outcome could have been far more serious.
May 28, 2023 — The Sunbury Earthquake: Too Close for Comfort
Just under two years later, Werribee residents were shaken again — this time by a very different kind of earthquake. At 11:41pm on Sunday night, the greater Melbourne region was shaken by a magnitude 4.0 earthquake centred near Sunbury, approximately 30km north of the CBD.
In the Melbourne region, the earthquake reportedly produced shaking which lasted roughly 10–20 seconds, and it was followed two minutes later by a magnitude 2.8 aftershock.
While magnitude 4.0 is modest by global standards, what made this event significant — and why it was felt so clearly across the western suburbs including Werribee — was its extraordinary shallowness. The Sunbury earthquake was a relatively shallow event at just 3km depth.
Because shallow earthquakes produce stronger ground-shaking, they are also more likely to cause damage.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne calculated the magnitude at 4.1, placing it as the largest earthquake to have occurred within about 50km of the CBD since 1932, when a magnitude 5 earthquake struck the Mornington Peninsula.
For Werribee, Sunbury sits roughly 50 kilometres to the northeast — close enough that the shallow origin of the quake made it a palpable experience for western suburbs residents who were still awake at midnight on a Sunday.
Geoscience Australia received more than 25,000 reports from people who felt the earthquake, some as far away as Hobart, 620km from the epicentre. Minor damage was reported across Melbourne, including cracked plaster and fallen pictures.
The Sunbury earthquake was the largest to have been recorded in the Melbourne metropolitan region in well over a century, with the previous Melbourne-area earthquake above magnitude 4 occurring near Sunbury in 1902.
Seismologists noted the event may have occurred near the Clarkefield Fault Scarp, a neotectonic feature previously identified as having produced earthquakes millions of years ago — a reminder that the faults capable of generating significant earthquakes in the Melbourne region are not always well-mapped or well-understood.
October 22, 2023 — The Colac Earthquake: A 2am Wake-Up Call
October 2023 brought another noteworthy event, this time originating to the southwest of Melbourne — a direction that placed Werribee almost directly between the epicentre and the city.
A 5.0 magnitude earthquake struck at 2:11am near Colac in the Great Otway National Park, about 165km from Melbourne, at a depth of 7km. Geoscience Australia initially measured it at magnitude 4.7 before revising it upward.
More than 4,420 people reported feeling the earthquake by 3:30am, including many residents in the Victorian capital, and the quake was felt as far north as Bendigo and as far south as King Island.
For Werribee, located approximately 115 kilometres from Colac along the highway corridor, this was a relatively proximate event.
Residents across the western suburbs reported being jolted awake by the brief but distinct shaking — a common experience during early morning earthquakes when people are stationary in bed and more attuned to ground movement.
More than 8,000 people formally logged their experience feeling the tremor, with reports coming from suburbs including Sunshine, St Kilda, Reservoir, Bendigo, Geelong, Cobram, and King Island.
Sunshine and neighbouring western suburbs are within the same corridor as Werribee, confirming the broad reach of the event into the city’s west.
An aftershock measuring 3.5 in magnitude was recorded at Apollo Bay at 5:44am.No injuries were reported and damage was minor.
The Colac earthquake was notable as only the fifth earthquake of magnitude 5.0 or above ever recorded in Victoria’s history — and it came just two years after the 2021 Mansfield event had held the same rare distinction.
A Pattern Emerging? Increased Activity or Increased Awareness?
The clustering of notable events between 2021 and 2023 prompted widespread public and media speculation that earthquakes were becoming more frequent in Victoria.
It’s a reasonable question, and one that seismologists have addressed directly. Adam Pascale, chief scientist at the Seismology Research Centre, noted that while more earthquakes are being felt by people, the data does not show an increase in overall seismic activity.
“People are noticing them more, and we are getting more earthquakes felt by people, but we aren’t seeing more activity,” he said, adding that “a few more earthquakes are being felt because they are close to the population.
This distinction matters enormously for suburbs like Werribee, which have seen massive population growth over the past decade.
More people in the western suburbs simply means more people to notice and report earthquakes that have always been occurring at similar rates.
The growth of social media has amplified individual experiences into collective awareness almost instantly, creating a sense that something unprecedented is happening when the statistical reality is more nuanced.
What Werribee Sits On
Geologically, Werribee and the surrounding Wyndham area sit atop younger sedimentary basins and volcanic plains — the flat terrain characteristic of the Western Plains lava flows that define much of Melbourne’s suburban west.
The geology can influence how seismic waves are experienced at the surface. Softer sedimentary soils can amplify ground motion compared to hard bedrock, potentially making a distant earthquake feel stronger than it would on more competent ground.
Seismologists have identified a number of neotectonic fault features across the Melbourne region, though the western half of Victoria remains comparatively sparse in seismic monitoring infrastructure, limiting researchers’ ability to precisely characterise earthquake hazards in that area.
Calls have been made by researchers for expanded seismic monitoring networks across western Victoria to better understand the risk profile of what is now one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia.
What Residents Should Know
The decade of seismic activity experienced across Werribee and the broader western suburbs, while largely benign in its outcomes, carries genuine lessons.
The 1989 Newcastle earthquake — magnitude 5.6, 13 deaths, and nearly $4 billion in losses — struck a city whose residents had similarly assumed themselves immune to serious earthquakes.
University of Melbourne researchers noted that Melburnians have “so far been lucky to dodge a damaging earthquake in a population centre,” but that a magnitude 5 or greater event occurring somewhere in Victoria every 8 to 10 years on average is a statistical reality that demands preparedness rather than complacency
The standard advice — drop, cover, and hold on during an earthquake; check for damage before re-entering a building; be prepared for aftershocks — applies just as much in Werribee as anywhere else in Victoria.
Residents are encouraged to register felt reports with Geoscience Australia’s Earthquakes@GA platform, which improves scientific understanding of how seismic waves travel across the region and helps emergency management agencies calibrate their responses.
Looking Ahead
From 2015 to 2025, Werribee’s seismic story has been written largely in borrowed shakes — tremors born far to the northeast or southwest that found their way west across the flat volcanic plains, jostling crockery and waking sleepers before fading back into silence.
The events were real, the shaking was real, but the consequences were limited. That is a blessing, not a guarantee.
Victoria’s geological history shows that the crust beneath the state is capable of far more. Ancient faults, many unmapped and poorly understood, thread through the rock beneath suburbs that have grown up without any consciousness of what lies below.
As Werribee continues to grow — tens of thousands of new homes spread across the Wyndham LGA — the intersection of an active, if moderate, seismic environment with a rapidly expanding population is a dynamic that planners, builders, and residents would do well to take seriously.
The ground beneath Werribee is not silent. It rarely has been. It simply takes an earthquake to remind us.
