Earthquake at Toowoomba, 17 September, 1875
On 17 September 1875, residents of the Darling Downs city of Toowoomba, were shaken by an earthquake. No better explanation of the incident and its aftermath can be found than that of the Toowoomba Chronicle:
No event that has occurred in Toowoomba for many years past created so much excitement as the shock of an earthquake that was felt yesterday morning in all parts of this district. About six o’clock, or a few minutes afterwards, and just as the sun was peering over the Main Range, a heavy thud was felt, followed by a rumbling noise like the discharge of distant artillery, the earth oscillated strangely, and shook almost every house in the town, and startled the inhabitants and terrified many.
Toowoomba had many fine buildings. They all survived.
In the brick buildings the shock was more perceptible and the effect more marked than in the wooden structures. In the buildings with upper stories beds were rocked like cradles, the toilet-glasses and toilet stands were in a state of commotion, and the bottles on the shelves rattled as if violently shaken by an unseen hand.
The earthquake travelled from south-west to the north-east, and as far as information has reached us, was distinctly felt at Emu Creek, south-west of Toowoomba, and at High-fields and the Gowrie Junction in a north-easterly direction, and a gentleman who resides within a mile of Helidon informed us that he felt the shock, and the earth’s vibration about the same time it was experienced in Toowoomba.
Some idea of the force of the vibration and the violence of the shock can be gathered when we state that in several of two-story brick buildings plaster has been displaced, and slight disruptions in the walls in one or two houses are clearly discernible.
The memory of the “oldest inhabitant ” has been taxed to ascertain if such a phenomenon as an earthquake ever occurred before on the Darling Downs, but nothing of the sort is recorded in traditional history. The one yesterday morning, therefore, is probably the first of the kind and as we have had personal experience of it, we confess we should not like a repetition of it, still less one of a more violent character.
Photographs: Toowoomba Historical Society, State Archives of Queensland.
Toowoomba Chronicle and Queensland Advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1875), Saturday 18 September 1875, page 5
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