Earthquake Rattles Australian Outback

An earthquake that rocked northwestern Australia on Sunday was the largest in or near the country in a decade, registering 6.3 on the Richter scale, seismologists said.

There were no reports of injury or major damage in the remote Kimberly region.

The earthquake, centered at sea about 125 miles from the Australian coast town of Derby, was felt across hundreds of miles, Victorian seismologist Gary Gibson said.

Dr. Peter Gregson, of the Mundaring Geophysical Observatory, near Perth, said the earthquake was five times as big as the 1989 earthquake in the eastern coastal city of Newcastle, which killed 13 people and injured many others.

“It’s a large earthquake and if it were located near a populated area, it would have caused significant damage,” Gregson said.