'It was pretty scary': 6.5 magnitude earthquake hits off West Australian coast
A 6.5 magnitude earthquake has hit off the West Australian coast.
The undersea earthquake occurred at 3.39pm AEST on Sunday off the shore between Port Hedland and Broome, in the Indian Ocean, GeoScience Australia reported.
There is no threat of a tsunami to the Australian mainland, islands or territories, the weather bureau states.
People living as far as Perth reported feeling the earthquake.
One man in Port Hedland described the moment he experienced the tremor.
“Looked at the daughter and bolted outside in case the roof fell in,” he tweeted.
Others on social media described the earthquake as “scary”.
“Broome just had a massive earthquake that was unbelievable,” a man wrote on Facebook.
“I was working under a truck the whole thing was shaking side to side.”
A woman wrote on the Broome Noticeboard Facebook page “everything was shaking for at least a minute.”
“The biggest shakes [were] pretty scary and the ground is still swaying with aftershocks,” she said.
Derby resident Jody Gaunt was having a beer with friends when they felt the quake.
"We were sitting outside and our chairs were rocking," she told AAP.
"The trees stopped moving and the breeze stopped blowing.
"We were thinking, 'Is this real or not real?' We've never had an earthquake up here, or a tremor."
Ms Gaunt, 53, said the quake was the talk of the neighbourhood and it was reported that stock had been shaken off the shelves at the local Woolworths.
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