The quake is thought to have started along the Eden-Burnside fault line, which is essentially the Hills face zone, at a depth of 4 km.

[2] Due to the Adelaide plains being primarily heavy clay, amplification of the tremor was reduced, resulting in less damage than a quake of this size would be expected to cause in a metropolitan area.

One of the settlement's earliest buildings, the Victoria Hotel in Hindley Street, suffered partial collapse.

Other major buildings severely damaged included the local Catholic cathedral, St Francis Xavier Cathedral, the General Post Office clock tower, and a newly completed hospital in Blackwood which sustained major damage in all its wards and offices (though an operating theatre survived).

The Troubridge Island Lighthouse off the south east corner of Yorke Peninsula, 83 km west of Adelaide across the Gulf St Vincent, shut down after the quake damaged its generator, while the Cape St Albans Lighthouse on Kangaroo Island began flashing irregularly.