Queensland has been rattled by another earthquake — the strongest in almost a century — and two strong aftershocks, two days after a similar-sized quake hit the region.

Geoscience Australia has warned more earthquakes may follow.

Senior seismologist Dan Jaksa said a magnitude-5.7 quake struck at 1:38pm on Saturday, with its epicentre 110 kilometres due east of Fraser Island at a depth of 10 kilometres.

"This is equivalent to the earthquake that occurred in 1989 in Newcastle, which of course is the most damaging earthquake in Australia's history," he said.

It was followed by two "significant" aftershocks in 90 minutes, the first measuring magnitude-5.2 and the second magnitude-3.1.

Mr Jaksa said Saturday's quake was the biggest to hit the state since 1918, and 10 to 15 times stronger than the magnitude-5.3 quake that struck south-east Queensland on Thursday.

He said Thursday's quake had triggered the latest activity.

"So you could technically say that the 5.3 was a foreshock of the 5.7. Let's hope the 5.7 is not a foreshock of an even larger event," Mr Jaksa said.

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"Unfortunately we can't predict earthquakes, even less so in Australia.

"Our earthquakes are a bit more random than they would be in say New Zealand ... so for Australia I often say that earthquakes can be a bit more dangerous because they're unexpected, completely unpredictable and can be a bit of a shock to people who are not familiar with these events."

Mr Jaksa said a quake registering five on the Richter scale was equivalent to an atomic bomb, but he said Queensland had avoided a disaster because the epicentres were offshore.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said there were no reports of damage so far, but the major quake could be felt for about 300 kilometres from Bundaberg, to the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Darryl Beetham from Biggera Waters on the Gold Coast said he was "doing his domestics" when he felt everything shake.

"Everything felt like it moved, I could hear the glass, like someone was knocking on the door and I thought 'my God they're shaking the place down'," he said.

A woman in a nearby suburb said she thought her house was going to collapse.

Gold Coast resident Carolyn said her whole house shook.

"I was laying down having a rest and the whole house just started to shake — it went for about 10 seconds and it was very strong," she said.

John Hobbs from Broadbeach Waters said he felt the quakes on Thursday and Saturday, and the weekend tremor was the worst.

"This one shook everything, the whole house ... and all the walls were creaking and cracking and going on," he said.

The Bureau of Metrology said there was no tsunami threat.

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