AUGUSTA — Central Maine experienced a 2.8 magnitude earthquake Sunday afternoon that was felt up to 60 miles away, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The earthquake was reported at 2:50 p.m. in Gardiner, according to the USGS.

Light shaking was mostly felt over a 20-mile area in central Maine, but about 500 people reported to the USGS that they had felt the earthquake up to 60 miles away.

It was unclear later Sunday if the quake had caused damage.

People were quick to turn to Facebook, mostly out of confusion over what had happened and to confirm if what they had felt was an earthquake.

Chief Don Gross of the West Gardiner Fire Department said several people called the dispatch center.

“We did have a report of a lady on Hallowell Road who thought her generator blew up, but that was unfounded,” Gross said. “We did investigate and find out it was an earthquake, but we weren’t sure what it was for a while.”

According to the USGS, an arm of the U.S. government that researches earthquakes and other natural events, quakes occur when there are faults in bedrock, usually miles beneath the surface.

Earthquakes are not common in Maine or the rest of the Northeast. The last event that people in Maine felt was when a 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit New Jersey in April.

A Facebook post on the Pittston unofficial town Facebook page had people reporting they had felt the earthquake in Augusta, East Pittston and Whitefield, while others wrote that they had not felt or heard anything except perhaps the ground buzzing.

“I felt a very loud bang and rumble — I thought a big truck had rolled over and hit something,” Diane Weeks Kidder, who said she felt the earthquake from Route 126 in Pittston, wrote.