The quake’s epicentre was recorded at Glenorchy, about 2km northwest of Stawell, about 7.58am on Friday, according to Geoscience Australia.

Stawell resident Tania Dignan said the rumbling went on for about 25 seconds.

“It was unbelievable,” she told NCA NewsWire.

“It just kept going, it felt like it was just under the house and I went straight away to wake my son up because I didn’t know what on earth it was.”

She said she drove through the town’s main street and spoke to another resident whose bike had toppled from their caravan roof, while her cousin in Bendigo couldn’t feel anything but the dogs “had gone mad suddenly”.

“It was unreal, nothing like this has ever happened here before,” she said.

“I first thought something might’ve been wrong down in the mines, I hope they’re all OK down there.”

The town’s underground gold mine has operated for 30 years, employing about 350 people at its peak in the last decade.

Geoscience Australia senior seismologist Phil Cummins said the earthquake could be felt about 100km away but was not strong enough to cause structural damage.

“It is possible if you were very, very close to it and on soft soil you might get things falling off shelves, you might get some cracking of plaster, but generally you need to get to an earthquake around magnitude 5.0,” he said.

“It could have been a rumble … in an earthquake of this size, people often mistake it for a big truck passing by or maybe a car hitting something.”