The 4.2 magnitude earthquake that struck at Lake Keepit on Friday jiggled cups and saucers as far west as Coonabarabran – 120km west of the epicentre – and was felt by residents in Tamworth, Armidale and Gunnedah.

While the first quake at 9.21pm woke everyone up, the second, two minutes later, seemed to be the one to reverberate through homes and conversations across the rest of the weekend.

At the epicentre, Lake Keepit assistant managers Kerry and Philip Lloyd, were in the midst of a normal Friday night – Kerry was on the computer and Philip was tending to a few jobs around the house when the earth moved.

“I didn’t really think anything of it,” Mrs Lloyd told The Leader. “But Philip ran outside. He knew what was going on.”

There were no reports of damage to the park and its immediate facilities.

“To be honest it felt a bit like it does when a truck goes along the highway or someone’s got a big V8 out on ther water. It’s not uncommon for us to feel vibrations from that,” Mrs Lloyd said.

A spokeswoman for State Water said all five dams in the region that might have been impacted by the quake had been checked.

“Chaffey, Copeton, Pindari, Split Rock and Lake Keeit dams have all been checked visually and so have their instruments and there have been no reports of any damage,” she said.

Seismologist for Geoscience Australia Jonathan Bathgate said reports to the Geoscience Centre suggested the second tremor may have been bigger but that will not be confirmed until a conclusive report is complied by seismologists tomorrow.

Mr Bathgate said a third, much smaller tremor had registered at 9.53pm.

“That would probably not have been felt by the majority of people,” he said. “There is a possibility of aftershocks after a 4.2 quake but there haven’t been any register for the area since the last one at 9.55pm on Friday."

Mr Bathgate conceded it was unusual to have a 4.2 quake in the region.

“There was no warning,” he said. "Sometimes there are foreshocks, which happen before the actual quake, but in this instance no activity registered before the movement at 9.21pm.”

Mr Bathgate went on to say that the fault our region sits on was not active.

“While it’s not common to have an earthquake there, there is a history of them. Friday’s quake was the first greater than magnitude 4 to strike inland northern NSW since December 1969, when a magnitude 5 quake occurred near Coonabarabran," he said.