Areas of the Queensland yesterday experienced a 5.8 magnitude tremor, Queensland’s largest in 20 years.

The earthquake occurred approximately 70km offshore from Bowen in north Queensland at 2:30pm.  A series of magnitude three aftershocks in the same region occurred in the following hours.

The quake reportedly lasted 40 seconds and was felt as far south as the Sunshine Coast. It led to evacuations of buildings in Cairns and Townsville. Geoscience Australia received more than 1,000 reports of the quake in the hours following the earthquake, however authorities have not reported any serious injuries or damage.

Maps from Geoscience Australia’s seismological web mapping service, shows the quake was one of a series of tremors in the region over the past 24 hours. The series of earthquakes was actually in a very similar locations to a series of earthquakes that occurred west of Bowen in 2011, which including a magnitude 5.3 tremor.

Siesmologist Hugh Glanville said it was a nationally “significant” quake and the “biggest earthquake in Queensland in 20 years”.

“On average we get one or two earthquakes over magnitude 5 each year,” Glanville said. “We had a magnitude 6 in central Australia earlier this year but this is the biggest in Queensland in 20 years. It’s significant.”

At 5.8, the magnitude of the earthquake surpassed Australia’s most damaging earthquake, the 5.6 magnitude Newcastle earthquake on 1989, which killed 13 people and caused $4bn in damage.

Geoscience Australia senior duty seismologist Dr Jonathan Bathgate said Australia experiences on average two magnitude 5 events per year. However, with five significant events since February 2015, Dr Bathgate suggests things have been more active than usual.

“The earthquakes occur because the Australian plate is moving northward at approximately seven centimeters per year, colliding with the Pacific plate, causing stress to build up across Australia, which is released periodically by earthquakes.”