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Australia had a rough week, and it’s only Wednesday
Yesterday, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake unexpectedly shook up much of Australia, and Victorian police fired rubber bullets at protestors demonstrating against mandatory vaccines at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
It’s been a long week for Aussies, and it isn’t even over yet.
A brief rundown of yesterday in Australia
A 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Australian continent yesterday. The quake originated near Woods Point, which is a small town of almost 40 people in Victoria.
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According to Mark Quigley and Dee Ninis, earthquake scientists at the Seismology Research Center, the earthquake began at a 12km depth and was also felt in Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, and even some areas in Tasmania.
Despite the spread of the tremors, only property was damaged and no injuries were reported. According to Quigley and Ninis, an earthquake of this size is to be expected in Australia.
“Australia has an earthquake of magnitude 6 or higher every six to ten years, on average. That’s based on an instrumental record going back about 150 years.” the scientists stated.
The pair also said that, while Australia is not a tectonic plate boundary, it is still “quite seismically active.”
More protests in Melbourne
After a series of protests in defiance of vaccine mandates for the countries’ construction workers over the past couple of days, the biggest demonstration so far happened at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne yesterday.
A huge crowd gathered around the steps of the WWI monument, managing to remain peaceful for most of the day. That is, until riot police showed up with rubber bullets and mace in tow.
In video footage of the demonstrations, there is a relative calm that seems to dissipate once the plain-clothed police officers deferred the situation to those in riot gear. Children are seen in the videos, even as protestors run away from the inching line of black-clad riot police.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true" data-twitter-extracted-i1695210584911605326="true"> <p lang="en" dir="ltr">Police firing at protesters at the Shrine of Remembrance in Victoria. <a href="https://t.co/rR51MzaCuW">pic.twitter.com/rR51MzaCuW</a></p> <p>— Antonio Montana 🇦🇺 (@dnforca) <a href="https://twitter.com/dnforca/status/1440571893388484612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2021</a></p></blockquote>
This certainly is not a good look for the Victorian police force. Opinions about this event have been about as polarized as they could possibly be, but, either way, the videos clearly show a crowd terrified by the escalation in force.
Reports state that over 200 individuals were arrested after the demonstration ended.
Regardless of this demonstration being quashed, it seems as though the protests will carry on. Similar protests have been ongoing for the past three days and only seem to be growing in size.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Anti-<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/lockdown?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#lockdown</a> protest now over after police overwhelm remaining protesters at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Melbourne?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Melbourne</a>’s Shrine of Remembrance. <a href="https://t.co/YOur9E7NS8">pic.twitter.com/YOur9E7NS8</a></p>— Norman Hermant (@NormanHermant) <a href="https://twitter.com/NormanHermant/status/1440570767914143748?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
While the people closest to these protests chose to focus on the reasons behind the demonstrations, Australian officials chose instead to focus on the shrine it happened at.
The Returned and Services League (RSL) Victoria, an Australian Defense Force support organization, condemned the protestors outright in virtue of their actions at the shrine.
RSL released a statement after the protests claiming, “If any individuals or groups choose to express their political views, positions or ideological theories in the grounds of the Shrine at any time, they are completely disrespecting the sanctity of this time-honoured space.”
