The 1954 Adelaide earthquake had its epicentre at
Darlington
Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town.
In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...
, a suburb of the city of
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
in
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
, some to the south of the
Adelaide city centre
Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ade ...
. The quake took place at 3:40 am in the early morning of 1 March 1954 and had a
reported magnitude of 5.6. An area of more than 700 km
2 sustained an intensity greater than V on the
Mercalli intensity scale
The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...
.
Geology
As Australia lies in the middle of a tectonic plate, South Australia is relatively stable geologically. However, South Australia is the second most earthquake-prone of the Australian states with around 3–4 tremors each day. Most tremors are of a magnitude below 2.5, and so noteworthy only to
seismologists
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...
. Since they are dispersed fairly evenly across
the state
A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "stat ...
, most occur well away from centres of human population. The 1954 Adelaide earthquake differed because of its magnitude, which made it the fourth most intense earthquake reported in the state since settlement in 1836, and because it occurred in an area of dense human settlement.
The quake is thought to have started along the Eden-Burnside
fault line
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
, which is essentially the
Hills face zone, at a depth of 4 km. However, due to a lack of instruments at the time, this is uncertain.
[Adelaide earthquake: where the faults lie](_blank)
The Advertiser 26 March 2011 Due to the Adelaide plains being primarily heavy clay, amplification of the tremor was reduced, resulting in less damage than a quake of this size would be expected to cause in a metropolitan area. There were no reported fatalities, and 16 reported injuries.
[Historical earthquakes: a case study for the Adelaide 1954 earthquake](_blank)
Earthquake Engineering in Australia, Canberra 24–26 November 2006
Damage
The total cost of the damage was estimated at around £17 million (2017: $578 million), but only £3 million (2017:$104 million) was paid out in insurance for 30,303 claims, covering around 22% of the damaged buildings. Adelaide in 1954 was still subject to wartime rationing, and most damaged property was uninsured.
The earthquake was the most destructive earthquake in recorded Australian history until 1989, when it was eclipsed by the 5.6 Richter magnitude
Newcastle earthquake, which caused $4 billion damage, killed 13 people, and injured 160.
One of the settlement's earliest buildings, the
Victoria Hotel in
Hindley Street
Hindley Street is located in the north-west quarter of the centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It runs between King William Street and West Terrace. The street was named after Charles Hindley, a British parliamentarian and soc ...
, suffered partial collapse. Other major buildings severely damaged included the local
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
cathedral
A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...
,
St Francis Xavier Cathedral, the
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
clock tower, and a newly completed hospital in
Blackwood which sustained major damage in all its wards and offices (though an
operating theatre
An operating theater (also known as an operating room (OR), operating suite, or operation suite) is a facility within a hospital where surgical operations are carried out in an aseptic environment.
Historically, the term "operating theater" refe ...
survived).
The
Wakefield Street Private Hospital
The Calvary Wakefield Hospital, formerly Private Hospital, Wakefield Street (PHWS) and variants, Wakefield Street Private Hospital, Wakefield Memorial Hospital and Wakefield Hospital, referred to informally as "the Wakefield", was a private ho ...
was damaged to the tune of £600, which was not covered by insurance.
[ ]
The Britannia statue in
Pirie Street, Adelaide
Pirie Street is a road on the east side of the Adelaide city centre, South Australia. It runs east–west, between East Terrace and King William Street. After crossing King William Street, it continues as Waymouth Street. It forms the souther ...
was badly damaged, and since it had also been similarly damaged in the 1897
Beachport
Beachport is a small coastal town in the Australian state of South Australia about south-east of the state capital of Adelaide and about north-west of the municipal seat in Millicent, located at the northern end of Rivoli Bay. Beachport has ...
and 1902
Warooka
Warooka is a town on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , ...
earthquakes, the clock in the statue was permanently removed.
[
Outside of Adelaide there was little damage. The ]Troubridge Island Lighthouse
Troubridge Island Lighthouse is a decommissioned lighthouse in the Australian state of South Australia located on Troubridge Island in Gulf St Vincent about southwest of the state capital of Adelaide and about southeast by east of Edithburgh ...
off the south east corner of Yorke Peninsula
The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Strai ...
, 83 km west of Adelaide across the Gulf St Vincent
Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, the other being the larger Sp ...
, shut down after the quake damaged its generator, while the Cape St Albans
Cape St Albans (also called Cape St Alban in some sources) is a headland in the Australian state of South Australia located on the north coast of the Dudley Peninsula on Kangaroo Island in the gazetted locality of Willoughby about south-east o ...
Lighthouse on Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...
began flashing irregularly.['' The Advertiser'', p. 1, 2 March 1954]
See also
*List of earthquakes in 1954
This is a list of earthquakes in 1954. Only magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquakes appear on the list. Lower magnitude events are included if they have caused death, injury or damage. Events which occurred in remote areas will be excluded from the ...
*List of earthquakes in Australia
This is a list of significant earthquakes recorded in Australia and its territories. The currency used is the Australian dollar (A$) unless noted otherwise.
List of earthquakes
Other earthquakes
* Broome, 16 August 1929, magnitude 6.6, offsho ...
References
External links
Recollections of the 1954 Adelaide Earthquake
{{Earthquakes in Australia
Great Adelaide Earthquake, 1954
1954 in Australia
March 1954 events in Australia
1950s in Adelaide
Earthquakes in Australia
Disasters in South Australia