A pub balcony and a classroom ceiling collapsed and bricks littered pavements as the quake hit the remote Kalgoorlie-Boulder mining towns, about 600 kilometres east of Perth. Two people from Boulder were treated in hospital for minor injuries following the quake, which was the biggest ever recorded in the area.

“It was terrifying,” pub worker Ashleigh Bines said. “Part of the roof was coming down, bricks were falling down outside. I just jumped under a sink, I was screaming.”

Hundreds of workers were evacuated from the vast open-cast Super Pit and the underground Mount Charlotte mine as a precaution, while children were also ushered out of classrooms before returning.

Police cordoned off parts of Boulder, where about a dozen buildings were damaged, and mine operator KCGM said Super Pit and Mount Charlotte would be closed for several hours.
Residents said holes had appeared in some roads. The worst-hit buildings were historic structures in the centre of Boulder, which sprang up in the wake of Australia’s 1800s Gold Rush.