A magnitude 3.4 earthquake was recorded near Appin, about five kilometres away
Geoscience Australia logged a shallow magnitude 3.4 event near Appin at 1:07pm on Friday 28 August 2026. No injuries or damage had been reported when it was checked on 29 August.
If your house shook for a few seconds early on Friday afternoon, there is a record of it. Geoscience Australia logged a magnitude 3.4 earthquake near Appin at 1:07pm on Friday 28 August 2026, and 578 people filed a felt report.
You can look the event up yourself: Geoscience Australia gives every earthquake a reference code, and this one is ga2026qzrmds — the page is at earthquakes.ga.gov.au/event/ga2026qzrmds. Codes like that are how you check a seismic event against the agency’s own record instead of a news report of it.
What the record says
Geoscience Australia puts the epicentre at 34.14°S, 150.72°E, at a depth of three kilometres. Measured against those published coordinates, that is roughly five kilometres south-west of the Menangle Park estate. A shallow event close by is felt more sharply than a deeper one further away, which is why a modest magnitude was noticed at all.
Geoscience Australia is the agency that monitors and reports Australian earthquakes, and its Earthquakes@GA map is the primary record — the place to check whether anything has happened since. Preliminary magnitude and depth figures are sometimes revised as seismologists review the data, so treat these as the agency’s current record rather than the last word.
No injuries and no property damage had been reported when this was checked on 29 August 2026. Geoscience Australia’s rolling seven-day list of recorded earthquakes showed no further New South Wales events after Friday’s when it was checked on 29 August 2026.
This is not the first movement recorded in the area. Geoscience Australia’s database also carries a magnitude 3.6 event at Appin on 28 May 2025, and several smaller events around Appin and Douglas Park in recent years.
One thing this is not
Geoscience Australia has published no statement about what caused this event, and nothing here should be read as one.
Separately, and as a standing fact rather than a consequence of this earthquake: every residential point we sampled in Menangle Park sits within the South Campbelltown Mine Subsidence District, so Subsidence Advisory NSW approval applies before you build, extend or subdivide. That is a planning requirement that exists whether or not the ground moves. Land constraints sets out what it means for a build.
What to watch
Geoscience Australia takes felt reports through the same site, and those reports are what build the shaking maps for events like this one. If the magnitude or depth is revised, the event page is where the revision appears.