An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.6 rumbled through southwest Nova Scotia Wednesday afternoon, according to Natural Resources Canada.

Just after 3:32 p.m., residents in the Digby and Yarmouth areas reported a loud rumbling and buildings shaking.

NRC on its website confirmed the quake epicentre was 60 kilometres west-southwest of Digby, off the coast of Tiverton in the Gulf of Maine between N.S. and Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick.

Kerri LeBlanc of Yarmouth said she was cleaning up after a graduation party when her house started shaking. At first she thought it was a thunderstorm, but it was intense enough to wake up her father.

"I was just kind of stunned. I just sat there and I didn't even move. I know some people were running around freaking out, but I was just stunned," she said.

LeBlanc said the tremor lasted about 10 seconds.

Closer to the epicentre was Helen Teed in Freeport who was getting ready to go to work.

She said she heard the rumble, felt the shake and heard a big crack.

"It's an old house, and we felt the walls crackling a little bit," Teed said. "It wasn't shaking things off my wall, but it made the house crack. Creaking, crack, I don't know, I've never experienced this before so I don't know how to explain it."

'Cross between a thunder rumble and big truck'

Teed says she does know it was very loud.

"It was like the cross between a thunder rumble and big truck going by but it was neither one," she said.

Mike Springer was at his home on a golf course in Comeauville when things started to shake. He says he immediately looked at the clock and saw it was 3:33 p.m.

Springer say he went outside to find his wife to see if she felt anything and she told him the clubhouse shook.

"Holy mackerel," he said. "I didn't think we had earthquakes in Nova Scotia."

NRC says there were no reports of damage, "and none would be expected," it said on their website.