Strong earthquake rattles buildings knocking out power for thousands of people
Central New Zealand, including the capital Wellington, was shaken by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake on Monday January 20; however there were no reports of injuries, and damage was mostly superficial.
Government seismologists at GNS Science said the minute-long, rolling quake was centred in the mainly rural Wairarapa region about 120 kilometres north east of Wellington, at a depth of 50 kilometres.
A spokesman at Police National headquarters told Reuters there’s been damage to houses mainly in the (Wairarapa) area, and that includes chimneys down, windows broken. We’ve had a lot of rock falls and slips on highways in the area, and the rest has been pretty minor, reports Reuters
The quake was felt from the middle of the North Island down through the upper parts of the South Island. More than a dozen aftershocks measuring up to 4.5 were recorded.
A large model of an eagle suspended from the ceiling at Wellington Airport to promote the Hobbit movie came down during the tremor, however nobody was hurt.
Most offices and businesses in the region were closed because of a public holiday.
The region was shaken by two large quakes of magnitude 6.9 and 6.5 August and September last year, which caused moderate damage to buildings and infrastructure, and some minor injuries.
New Zealand sits on the boundary of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, and records more than 14,000 earthquakes a year.
In February 2011 the South Island city of Christchurch was struck by a shallow magnitude 6.2 quake, which killed 189 people.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
