An early morning undersea earthquake was felt round Tauranga harbour today.

The earthquake was at 7.11am this morning and registered 4.4 on the Richter scale.

It was a shallow earthquake, 3km deep and centred 20km north west of Matata – in the vicinity of Pikowai.

Pukehina fire chief Errol Watts says the earthquake was strong enough to snap the hot water pipe and flood a Pukehina house.

'She was quite a nice little shake,” says Errol.

'We could hear it coming here. It sounded like thunder. I was feeding the calves and the shed did a big wobble. I've felt worse, but it was still a good one.”

On Motiti Island resident Karen Thomson says the quake 'just kept going and going, it was different”.

Residents in Te Puna say it felt 'like a large dog shaking himself on the bed.”

At the Pukehina Beach Store Doug Mack says things rattled around on the shelves, but nothing fell off.

It was the second earthquake near Matata this morning with Geonet reporting another 3.0 tremor at 6.11am, 10 km north west of Matata at a depth of five km.

The 7.11am quake was followed by others at 7.15am and 7.16am. They were centred 10km north west of Matata. The 7.15am quake was a kilometre deep and 3.2 magnitude. The quake a minute later was three kilometres deep and 2.9 magnitude.

At 1.28am today there was another earthquake near Turangi, where there was a minor swarm of quakes yesterday. Today's Turangi quake was 2.8 magnitude and five kilometres deep, centred 10km north of the town.