Melbourne earthquake: ABC hosts rocked by quake on live TV

Michael Rowland feels the quake.

Cameras captured the moment today's Melbourne earthquake hit the ABC's television studios, leaving presenters Michael Rowland and Tony Armstrong stunned.

Footage released by the ABC shows ABC Breakfast host Rowland pausing mid-sentence as the studio starts to shake around him. The programme was off-air at the time of the earthquake, which struck around 9:17am.

"There's an earthquake! Holy s***!" one voice can be heard saying off-camera.

"Oh! I've never had an earthquake in here before," says another, as Rowland and Armstrong look off-camera nervously.

"F***ing scary," says another off-camera voice.

"Was it an earthquake or a structural thing? Let's go," says Rowland, standing at the desk. "That was a big one."

'Let's go.'

More than 20 seconds in to the video, sports reporter Armstrong notes that the earthquake is still going.

VicSES says a magnitude 6.0 earthquake - that was 10km deep - occurred with an epicentre near Mansfield in Victoria. Tremors have been felt as far away as Sydney, Newcastle and Tasmania.

Mansfield mayor Mark Holcombe said the quake felt "really strong".

"It came right out of left field. We don't have earthquakes, that I am aware of, none of the locals I spoke to this morning had that experience with earthquakes here before, so it is one right out of left field. It was just a really big crumble," he told ABC Breakfast.

"It was really strong. I was sitting down at work at my desk and I needed to run outside, it took me awhile to work out what it was.

"I have been in earthquakes overseas before and it seemed to go on longer than I have experienced before. The other thing that surprised me was how noisy it was. It was a real rumbling like a truck going past."

Startling early footage shows the damage the quake has done in Melbourne, with a wall collapsing on a building in Chapel Street.