Earthquake strikes Australian state

Parts of NSW and Canberra have been hit by a light earthquake.

Multiple residents have reported feeling the 3.8 magnitude shake at 6.41am on Thursday.

The Seismology Research Centre reported the earthquake occurred 36kms from Goulburn, with residents in nearby areas reportedly experiencing the quake from “a small hum” to “whole house shaking”.

One resident in Towrang told 2GB this morning that he thought “it was a train” as his whole house shook for 7-10 seconds.

A Laggan resident described the earthquake like “a truck hitting the house” and he heard a loud bang.

“I felt the earthquake in Goulburn, I felt my bed shaking,” the woman said.

“At first I thought it was a train, it was this big vibration, the whole house shook for about 10 seconds,” Mark said.

One man reported to have “felt a small hum in the ground” from all the way in Canberra.

“I was in the shower and I felt this rumble and then the house shook and there was this mighty earthquake,” another man said.

There have been no reports of injuries or significant damages and Geoscience Australia has yet to detect any aftershocks, but they remain “a possibility”.

Senior sizeologist Hadi Ghasemi said the incident was a “shallow small earthquake” and was “widely felt within the region”.

“Earthquakes in Australia are caused by stress within the interior of the continent itself, which is produced by the Australia tectonic plate moving seven centimetres to the northeast every year,” he said.

“The good thing is, generally speaking, aftershocks tend to be just smaller than the main shock itself,” Mr Ghasemi said.

While residents felt this earthquake, according to Mr Ghasemi there have been 250 earthquakes within the region over the last 20 years, with many unnoticed.

“Only twenty of them were magnitude three or larger. Many of them happened unnoticed by the public,” he said.

A spokesperson for Geoscience Australia told Newswire that there have been 410 reports so far with more trickling through.

A 3.6 magnitude earthquake struck western Sydney and the Blue Mountains in March.