I really different post this one. I was lying in bed this morning and I could hear some things in my cabinets shaking. It was only light and minor, and living in a house that moves a bit, I didn't really notice it that much.
Then I felt the bed shake.
It only lasted a moment, but in that short moment I realised that no one was walking around the house, no traffic was driving up or down the road, there was no labour works or something like that going on outside. Everything was quiet and, well, in early morning stillness. My mind quickly went to the cabinets standing still - no noise or any sound from them now. It was then I realised that, nothing local could have been making the cabinets vibrate like they were. My immediate thoughts were; was that an earthquake?
Turns out - it was! A 4.1 magnitude earthquake near Maydena and Strathgordon around 6:38 am. The hero image of this post shows roughly where the epicentre was, near Lake Pedder. Image is from the ABC website (I wasn't able to link to their image for some reason, but credit to the ABC).
Normally you don't notice things rattling in your house. They're just part of the quirks of the place you live in. Someone walks on the creaky wooden floorboards and the cutlery in the shelf rattles. The windows make a noise when a loud car drives by. The wood in the house fractures as the temperature changes. I initially didn't think much of the cabinet making noises, just put it down to 'things in the house make noise'. But when the bed shook, that was something noticeably different. In the moment following that, it hit me that nothing could have made the cabinets rattle like that. There just wasn't anything happening locally that could have done that.
And thus; turns out - it was an earthquake!
How cool!