Crowd-sourced Felt Reports for 22 September 2021 MW 5.9 Woods Point earthquake: actions of the public

On the morning of 22 September 2021, at 09:15 Australian Eastern Standard Time, a powerful earthquake of moment magnitude MW 5.9 struck approximately 12 km to the northeast of the small village of Woods Point in the Victorian high country. This earthquake is the largest earthquake in Victoria in the instrumental era and it shook the residents of multiple localities around the epicentre, including Melbourne, where it notably caused a parapet and wall collapse, spilling debris onto Chapel Street, Windsor, among other reports of damage. The earthquake was felt across Australia's eastern states and territories. Geoscience Australia received 43,073 community felt reports through its Earthquakes@ GA 1 (EQ@GA) website with reports of shaking coming from Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and even Queensland. Nearly 76% of all felt reports were submitted within the first 24 hours of the earthquake and 45% were received within the first hour at peak rates of almost 700 responses per minute. This is the largest number of reports that Geoscience Australia has received for a single event since the reporting facility was added to the EQ@GA website in 2006.