Residents across south-east Queensland have been rattled by a magnitude-5.3 earthquake, with reports of tremors coming in from Yeppoon, the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Geoscience Australia said the earthquake epicentre was offshore from eastern Queensland, 100 kilometres off Fraser Island in the Coral Sea, at a depth of 30 kilometres.

A magnitude-3.9 tremor was recorded a few minutes after the initial quake.

The Bureau of Meteorology said "there is no tsunami threat to Australia".

Geosciences Australia said there was a possibility of further earthquakes off the south-east Queensland coast in the next few days.

"We know that in the Japanese earthquake of 2011 there were a few days before, a magnitude 7 and two magnitude 6s, and then the 9 a few days later," seismologist Dan Jaksa said.

"So there is clearly the potential for another event but it is less likely."

Some buildings in Bundaberg evacuated

Tremors from the quake, which occurred at 9:41am, were enough to force the evacuations of some buildings in the Bundaberg CBD.

At the AusWide bank, 150 staff members were told to leave.

Chief financial officer Bill Shaffer said staff reported desks moving and blinds shaking.

"We decided as a precaution, and particularly because we had some unnerved staff, that we thought we would just have some staff do a walkaround and check everything was safe," he said.

Engineers are also assessing Bundaberg council buildings, including the region's historic art gallery and several older sites in the CBD.

Geoscience Australia said it was the strongest quake registered in the region since the early part of last century.

Police Minister Jo-Ann Miller said there had been no reports of damage yet, although photos and stories were starting to emerge on social media others claim.

"If they [residents] are concerned, or if they do have any structural damage, or they believe they do have structural damage, their first point of contact should be to the SES and our emergency services personnel, including police fire emergency services," she said.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said thankfully everyone was OK.

"I was absolutely shocked like most Queenslanders," she said.

On the Sunshine Coast, Paul Wilson said new cracks have appeared in his Yaroomba rental property since the quake, which also knocked over his computer monitor.

"My monitor is sitting on a massage table so it's not on a desk surface to start with - but it was actually just rocking, rocking, rocking and swaying it just collapsed and came straight down."

Reports on social media stated the earthquake lasted anywhere from 15 seconds up to two minutes.

'50-year earthquake' on known fault line

The earthquake was not a unexpected event, a seismologist says.

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Central Queensland University researcher Mike Turnbull said the region was hit by a magnitude-5.0 earthquake near Mount Perry, west of Bundaberg, back in February.

He said both quakes occurred on known fault lines - near Mount Perry earlier this year and east of Fraser Island on Thursday.

The scientist said central Queensland was the earthquake capital of eastern coastal Australia.

"It's not unusual we've had large earthquakes in the past we'll have large earthquakes in the future we just can't forecast or predict when they're going to occur," he said.

"We could call this earthquake a 50-year earthquake, if you like."

Senior Geoscience Australia seismologist John Bathgate said the quake was caused by tectonic plate movements.

"The cause is the Australian plate, we are moving north by about seven centimetres a year," he told 612 ABC Brisbane.

"That basically imparts stresses on local fault lines and we get earthquakes such as this one, where that stress exceeds the strength of the rock.

"Queensland is one of the least active states in the country, but we do have a history of earthquakes occurring offshore.

"We've had a number going back to 1918; we recorded a couple of very large ones off Gladstone of a magnitude 5.7 and 6."

University of Queensland geologist Jonathan Aitchison said earthquakes relieved tension in the Earth's surface.

"It's a reasonably large earthquake but it's not a huge earthquake," he said.

"It's significant enough that it comes up on all the alert systems.

"If earthquakes stopped happening then we would all be very worried because that means the planet's not working anymore."

'I reckon we've had an earthquake somewhere'

ABC Local Radio has been inundated with callers from Bundaberg to the Gold Coast reporting a tremor.

David Anderson, on the Fraser Coast, said he was sitting on his on back deck having a coffee when his house began shaking.

"The house started shaking and vibrating, and the awning which is on the veranda rattled and shook," he said, adding: "It didn't last long."

Joan was camping at Woodgate, south of Bundaberg, when her caravan began shaking.

"I didn't realise what it was at first, the caravan was shaking," she said.

"I thought someone was having a go at me and looked up and saw the TV, which isn't attached to the wall accept for an arm, and the TV was slinging to and fro."

Richard from the Sunshine Coast said he also felt the tremor for about 10 seconds.

"Just sitting here on the computer and thought there was a knock on the door, but it was definitely the house shaking," he said.

"The windows were rattling and the door sort of rattling.

"I don't know the house was just shaking it took me a second or two to realise, could this be an earthquake."

Jill from Mapleton said she was standing in the middle of the floor when the ground started to shake.

"I was looking at the windows and the windows were wobbling in and out. It was good," she said.

Belinda Sheridan from Glenwood south of Maryborough said her house shook like a washing machine.

"All of a sudden the wardrobe door started shaking - the entire house shook and windows shook coffee splashed out of cups," she said.

Peter Hutton, who lives at the Bluff at Yeppoon, said he assumed the slight tremor he felt was an earthquake.

"I was just sitting in my lounge chair looking out to sea reading a book and I just felt the back of the chair, sort of this little bit of a tremble," he said.

"It was hardly noticeable, quite frankly, and it did it, I think, three times. And I just thought, 'oh, that's a bit funny', and I called my wife and I said I reckon we've had an earthquake somewhere."

A seismic chart depicts the magnitude-5.3 earthquake that rocked parts of south-east Queensland. ( Supplied: Geoscience Australia )

'It felt like a bomb had gone off deep underground'

Callers to 612 ABC Brisbane said they felt movement from just before 10am on Thursday.

Irvine from Mt Tamborine said the tremor was felt throughout his home.

"My wife was in the kitchen and the windows rattled and I was in another room and the doors were rattling," he said.

"Our house is on stumps and the concrete goes into the ground two metres so I think that's why we felt it."

ABC News reporter Elloise Farrow-Smith, who is holidaying with her family on Fraser Island, said her husband, who lived through the Newcastle earthquake, was in no doubt about what they felt.

"We were sitting there having a cup of tea, just sitting on the sand, and suddenly the ground started moving underneath," he said.

"My husband came running over, and he's lived through earthquakes in Newcastle, and he said, 'Did you feel that? That was definitely an earth tremor'.

"It felt like a bomb had gone off deep underground somewhere."

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