Here we are parked up with our own backyard consisting of the Rose Memorial Garden
I managed to source the following information from the Internet so I thought that I would share the details with you. On this particular day in 1968 I was visiting my family in Merredin, in fact I was changing my eldest son who at the time was only 17 months old when I felt the quake. Great Eastern Highway was impassable with large crevices in the road and as we were returning to Perth that evening we had to detour through York, we were very concerned at the time because we had family living in Meckering. It was nice to see that the town is still surviving years later.
A Relic as a reminder of all the homes & businesses damaged in the Quake
MECKERING EARTHQUAKE INFORMATION
downloaded from the net
Buckled Railway Lines from the quake
At 10.59a.m. on the 14th October 1968, the small town of Meckering,
about 130 km east of Perth, was destroyed by an earthquake. The magnitude of
the Meckering earthquake was 6.9 on the Richter Scale making it one of the
largest recorded in the seismic history of Australia.
The earthquake lasted 45 seconds and was felt over an area of 700kms in radius and caused damage in many towns. The quake focus was 7km deep and had the force equivalent of 10 Hiroshima type atomic bombs. The largest land displacement measured a westward heave of 2.44m, a southerly slip of 1.5m and vertical lift of 1.96m. The principal fault scarp of the Meckering earthquake was originally 37 km long, aligned approx N-S, of which the Great Eastern Highway was bisected 4.4km West of Meckering township.
Trenching across the scarp took place in 1990, and it was concluded that the Meckering earthquake was the result of the reactivation of an old fault line, possibly tens of thousands years old. Unfortunately today approximately only 1.5km of the actual fault scarp remains which is located 12 km South/West of Meckering. Over the years since the quake occurred the scarp has been bulldozed to continue wheat farming of the region and to remove the scarp as a livestock hazard.
The Meckering Earthquake was located in a well-documented zone of seismic activity which is the most active region of Australia. This region is centred about 150 kilometres east of Perth and is known as the South-West Seismic Zone (SWSZ) and measures roughly 300 kilometres by 500 kilometres. According to Geo science Australia (AGSO), more than 12,000 earthquakes have been recorded in the area since September 2001 with most of these events being aftershocks of larger events.
We moved on from Meckering and have settled in nicely at the Goomalling Caravan Park and hope to catch up with my sister Beth and her husband tonight for dinner at the Jennacubine Tavern.
The earthquake lasted 45 seconds and was felt over an area of 700kms in radius and caused damage in many towns. The quake focus was 7km deep and had the force equivalent of 10 Hiroshima type atomic bombs. The largest land displacement measured a westward heave of 2.44m, a southerly slip of 1.5m and vertical lift of 1.96m. The principal fault scarp of the Meckering earthquake was originally 37 km long, aligned approx N-S, of which the Great Eastern Highway was bisected 4.4km West of Meckering township.
Trenching across the scarp took place in 1990, and it was concluded that the Meckering earthquake was the result of the reactivation of an old fault line, possibly tens of thousands years old. Unfortunately today approximately only 1.5km of the actual fault scarp remains which is located 12 km South/West of Meckering. Over the years since the quake occurred the scarp has been bulldozed to continue wheat farming of the region and to remove the scarp as a livestock hazard.
The Meckering Earthquake was located in a well-documented zone of seismic activity which is the most active region of Australia. This region is centred about 150 kilometres east of Perth and is known as the South-West Seismic Zone (SWSZ) and measures roughly 300 kilometres by 500 kilometres. According to Geo science Australia (AGSO), more than 12,000 earthquakes have been recorded in the area since September 2001 with most of these events being aftershocks of larger events.
We moved on from Meckering and have settled in nicely at the Goomalling Caravan Park and hope to catch up with my sister Beth and her husband tonight for dinner at the Jennacubine Tavern.
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