An earthquake struck just south of Tauranga and followed in the wake of a strong quake which rattled a small Taranaki town earlier this morning.

The Taranaki earthquake, which GeoNet describes as being strong in intensity and was widely felt throughout the lower north island, measured 5.0 in magnitude and struck 10 kilometres north-west of Opunake at a depth of 14km at 5.59am.

Less than an hour later, a 3.0 magnitude earthquake struck 30km south-east of Tauranga at a depth of 132 km at 6:48am. GeoNet describes this earthquake as ‘unnoticeable'.

More than 2000 people reported feeling the 5.0 quake in Opunake by 6.30am and Geonet initially classified the quake as a "severe" 5.2 magnitude, before revising it down to 5.

Geonet duty seismologist Dr Anna Kaiser tells Fairfax aftershocks could be expected in the region following the Opunake quake.

'The most likely scenario is smaller aftershocks over the coming days, but we can't rule out there will be another one the same size.”

In the Bay of Plenty/Tongariro region monitored by Geonet, there have been 89 earthquakes in the past week – some felt but the majority have been unnoticeable.

Of those 89 quakes, 34 were magnitude two and less, 46 measured between 2-3, five measured between 3-4, and one measured between 4-5 magnitude.

While over the weekend GeoNet also recorded a flurry of activity just off White Island's coastline, with four light-intensity quakes measuring between 2.6 to 2.8 magnitude, from 9.27pm on Friday up until 2.01pm on Saturday.

A map showing the recent earthquakes in the Bay of Plenty/Tongariro over the past year. Green dots represent moderate-insanity quakes, blue represents light-insanity and grey represents weak-insanity. Image: GeoNet