Melbourne and tremors don’t really belong in the same sentence. Sort of like Melbourne and snow, Melbourne and rain, or Melbourne and reliable public transport. Yet despite this clearly foolproof safeguard  Melbourne has experienced two tremors hitting in the mid 4′s in as many weeks.

Why is this happening, what can we do to prepare ourselves and how do we stop it from happening again?

OzSoapbox pokes the white elephant in the room and asks “just what the bloody hell is going on?“

For those people that don’t live in earthquake prone areas, the tremor is a mystical source of excitement. It’s like the world’s best rollercoster with no charge, with the convenience of happening wherever you might be at the time. Something we put so much effort into, the land, shows us that really if it wants to it is quite capable of turning our undies brown.

When in the midst of an tremor, one can only admire the magnificence of such raw power and  imagine that this is how ants must feel like their homes come under attack from stray physical attacks. Then when the tremor passes the admiration fades leaving you free to resume kicking down ant homes. Yes tremors certainly do add a bit of spice to our day but do we need to fear them?

Scientists have already given up, Geoscience Australia seismologist Spiro Spiliopoulos concludes;

All we know is we have an active fault there and quakes are occurring.

The stresses are due to the Australian plate moving northward … but being able to say why earthquakes occur on this particular spot, our science is not good enough yet to say why.’


It seems scientists know as bloody much as the rest of us do and it would appear that science itself is the active fault Spiliopouslos is referring to.

Good thing the government is pumping millions into Geoscience Australia so they can explore offshore seismic activity. Never know when we might need some detailed warning and feedback on those offshore tremors we hear so much about.


With science seemingly incapable of being able to explain or predict tremors in Melbourne those with vested interests have begun to relay their message of caution. 1300-Insurance offers up some advice;

It may be a timely reminder for people to contact their insurer to ensure that their Home and Contents Insurance covers them for all eventualities. Greg Read from 1300 Insurance says “its not something people really consider a possibility… although they might have thought that about a bushfire until recently”.


I'm not entirely convinced though. In the recent bushfires in Melbourne it was reported that 30% of the homes destroyed were uninsured, that is the occupants were left with nothing and because of their own stupidity of living in a potential bushfire area and not taking out house insurance had nothing to rebuild with. The government's response to this idiocy?

Mr Brumby said the Government was committed to helping those who wanted to rebuild.

"Clearly people who haven't got any support, who have lost everything and have been uninsured, maybe they get the bigger hand along," he said.


No you're not reading that wrong, that is Premier of Victoria John Brumby stating that if you didn't have insurance the government is going to give you more money then if you did. That's what we do in Melbourne, we reward irresponsible tightarses.

Before you think to rush out and buy or upgrade your existing insurance consider that the March 6th earthquake was the "largest to occur near Melbourne in 36 years."and that the government is probably going to lavish more money on you if you're uninsured and lose everything.

So far we've established that science is useless when it comes to tremors and that insurance is probably a bad idea, but where science has failed, can alternative, less scientific methods be used to obtain an accurate picture of how the Melbourne tremors came about?

Absolutely.

Both tremors have had their epicentres placed in the town of Korumburra.

About 15 patrons in the pub looked at each other and expected the worst as the two-storey building began to move.

It was as bad as the last one, said Rachel Waycott (who) was working in the Austral Hotel in Korumburra.


Now aside from wondering just what the hell fifteen people were already doing in a pub at 4:30pm on a wednesday afternoon, clearly something dodgy is going down at the the town Korumburra. I decided to look into it after hours painstakingly sorting through the raw data on the small town have narrowed down the source of Melbourne's tremors to three possible explanations.


1. Giant Freaking Earthworms

Korumburra is situated in South east Gisspland amd Gippsland is the home of the 'Gigantic Gippsland Earthworm'. Clare Snow explains;

Australia’s indigenous earthworms can be huge. The Giant Gippsland earthworm (Megascolides australis) has an entry in the Guinness World Records at 3m long (although they’re usually 80cm long). It is a vulnerable species, close to extinction, because of habitat destruction.


Given that the latest tremor epicentre was estimated to have been "about 10 kilometres underground" it would appear that the earthworms have been driven further underground and are now extracting their revenge.

Apparently "Ammonia is toxic to earthworms". Maybe we should divert some of those millions going into GeoScience Australia and start buying bulk lots of Ammonia. We could then use Elvis to ammonia bomb Korumburra thus solving the problem of tremors once and for all.


2. Captain Boomerang

It is well documented that one of Flash Gordon's archrivals, Captain Boomerang was born in Korumburra. Captain Boomerang "has been shaped by life's wrongs and plunged into criminal behavior by psychological trauma. Unlike a hero who uses this trauma to prevent it from happening to others, Captain Boomerang wants payback for it as a villain".

Captain Boomerang not only regularly refers to his partners in crime as "Abos" but also has "all kinds of gimmick boomerangs, from razor sharp boomerangs, exploding boomerangs and others."

Hang on, exploding boomerangs and psycholgical trauma? How many people do you think were born in Korumburra do you think might possess such qualities? The answer is one. I have come to the conclusion that Captain Boomerang himself has returned to his birth town of Korumburra and is exploding his boomerangs in a secret lair 10km below the surface.

The government needs to get in touch with Flash Gordon and put a stop to this immediately.

(no seriously, Captain Boomerang?? Oh my god I can't think of a cheesier name for a villain...)


3. Captain Planet

Recently in Queensland the cargo ship Pacific Adventurer leaked 100,000 litres of oil into the ocean and Captain Planet is pissed. Unfortunately there seems to be some sort of mix up and Melbourne has wound up taking the brunt of his wrath.

Fire: Do I really need to explain Black Saturday?

Wind: 150km/h winds lashed the state on Tuesday March 3rd.

Heart: Valentines day, February 14th.

Water: I was admittedly stuck on this one but then I remembered it was St. Patricks day yesterday. Beer has water in it.. right?

This only leaves earth and that's where Melbourne's tremors come into the picture. Queensland screwed up and now Melbourne is copping a Captain Planet Plague of the elements. We need to take back our Kyoto Protocol treaty and get back to polluting the crap out of our atmosphere before it's too late.

So there you have it. Sure my sources might be questionable and the science behind my theories ridiculous at best but at least it's something, which is more then the "scientists" at GeoScience are willing to give you.

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3. Melbourne's Docklands is still a depressing wasteland
4. Melbourne's skateparks, eyesore or urban art?
5. Michael Jackson Memorial @ Federation Square Melbourne