One of Australia’s biggest earthquakes on record (magnitude 6.0) struck near Melbourne, damaging buildings. It was felt 500 miles away in Adelaide and Sydney 600 miles to the north. Over half of Australia's 25 million population lives in the southeast in an area from Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney. Quakes are relatively unusual in this area. The shaking and damage did not stop hundreds of angry demonstrators from holding a protest across Melbourne against a vaccine mandate for construction workers (there are more Covid cases in the construction sector than there are Covid patients in the whole hospital system). Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrations before making arrests. Earlier in the day the protesters had marched through the city centre, chanting their opposition to the mandate. See