TOWER TESTS AFTER QUAKE
TALLEST BUILDING TO BE CHECKED AFTER TREMOR’S 20 SECONDS OF FEAR
CAIRNS’ tallest building will undergo an inspection after 100 office workers were forced to evacuate during earthquake tremors.
Scared workers rushed from the Cairns Corporate Tower in Lake St during the magnitude-7.2 earthquake which struck in the Banda Sea off Indonesia about 11am yesterday.
Many described how everything from furniture to curtains shook and swayed during a “scary” 20 seconds.
Migration Plus Network migration assistant Mena Kulanthavelu said she had never felt anything like it before.
While there was no tsunami risk to the mainland the earthquake was the biggest felt in Darwin in more than a decade.
STRUCTURAL integrity tests will be conducted immediately on the tallest building in Cairns after office workers were forced to evacuate during earthquake tremors.
About 100 people in the 15storey Cairns Corporate Tower rushed to fire exits yesterday while tables banged following a monster earthquake more keenly felt in Darwin.
The magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck in the Banda Sea off Indonesia about 11am, with the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre quick to say there was no tsunami risk to the mainland.
The aftershock passed without notice for most of the city, it seems, except in the 56m-tall Cairns Corporate Tower.
Mark Keowski was in the Cape Flattery Silica Mine’s office on the top floor when he realised something was amiss.
“The tables were swaying and knocking against the walls,” he said.
“We walked outside to see if everyone else had felt it and made the decision to get out.
“Everyone seemed to make the same call, because there were a lot of people trying to get down the stairs.
“It was swaying for a good 20 seconds.”
Staff stayed downstairs for about five minutes before returning to work.
Migration Plus Network migration assistant Mena Kulanthavelu was on the 12th floor when she felt the same strange phenomenon.
“The curtains were moving and you could feel everything shaking,” she said.
Ms Kulanthavelu said she had lived in Cairns for three years and had never felt anything like it before. “It was a bit scary,” she said. “My husband works at the aquarium and he didn’t feel anything, so it must have just been in the tall buildings.”
Steven Garland from the Japanese Consular Office on the top floor said it was not the first tremor he had experienced in the building. His office did not evacuate. “The pictures on the wall had a bit of a wobble and you could feel it in your legs when standing up, but it wasn’t too bad,” Mr Garland said.
Paul Lohr, asset manager for the building owner, GARDA Capital Group, said an inspection would be undertaken within 24 hours.
“They are built to withstand it, but we will be doing an inspection,” he said.
“It’s about the third one they’ve had in the last 10 years, and it withstood the first two.”
Staff at Crystalbrook Collection’s Riley hotel, the Cairns Aquarius apartment tower and the Pullman International told the Cairns Post they had not heard any reports of the tremor.