A magnitude 5.4 earthquake in the Waikato rocked the North Island tonight, with reports of tremors reaching as far away as Christchurch and Auckland.
GeoNet reported that the “slight” earthquake occurred at 6:07 p.m., 20 km southeast of Tokoroa at a depth of 159 km.
People on social media immediately reported their experience of the earthquake. One Twitter user said, “Hell the rolling, wobbly shake right here in Levin.”
GeoNet said this earthquake is unrelated to Taupō volcano and recent seismic activity there.
“This earthquake is due to subduction beneath the North Island and is not related to the Taupō Volcano,” GeoNet said.
“Another nice wobble in Palmy, lasted about 20 seconds,” said another Twitter user.
“Nice, long and rolling… I heard it coming too,” said a Palmerston North resident.
On Wednesday night, a strong earthquake triggered a tsunami in Lake Taupō, destroying boats and damaging the township’s waterfront. More than 180 aftershocks have been detected.
The central North Island is still ravaged by tremors after a strong earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale.
The shallow earthquake struck about 20 km southwest of Taupō shortly before midnight, at a depth of 5 km.
GNS seismic duty officer John Ristau and volcanic duty officer Steve Sherburn said Wednesday night’s quake was by far the biggest quake since May, when activity under the lake increased.
The previous largest quake was a magnitude 4.2 earthquake on September 10. The scientists said this week was now considered the most active this year, but most of this was due to aftershocks.
“The current week is the most active this year, and it is twice as active as the following week which was early September, but this activity is almost all aftershocks of the M5.6 earthquake.”
While it was previously reported that there was a small chance of an even more powerful earthquake hitting, the likely scenario was a repeat of an earlier streak in September in which activity decreased.
“While it’s impossible to predict earthquakes — we can only calculate statistical forecasts — with an earthquake there is always a small chance that a larger earthquake will occur,” Ristau said.
“The most likely scenario is that there will be a number of smaller aftershocks that diminish, just as we experienced with the M5 in September 2019 with a similar series of aftershocks.”