6.2 magnitude earthquake rattles New Zealand’s North Island

January 20, 2014 – NEW ZEALAND – Central New Zealand, including the capital Wellington, was shaken by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake on Monday, but there were no reports of injuries, and damage was mostly superficial. The minute-long, rolling quake was centered in the mainly rural Wairarapa region about 120 kilometers north east of Wellington, at a depth of 50 kms, government seismologists at GNS Science said. “There’s been damage to houses mainly in the (Wairarapa)area, and that includes chimneys down, windows broken,” a spokesman at Police National headquarters told Reuters. “We’ve had a lot of rock falls and slips on highways in the area, and the rest has been pretty minor.” 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, but 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. –Reuters

There were further reports of slips along the Pohangina River and at Anzac Cliffs on the Manawatu River. Electricity was cut to about 5600 homes in Tararua, Manawatu and Taranaki but but lines company Powerco confirmed all were back on this morning. Wairarapa Civil Defence emergency management controller Kevin Tunnell said there had been numerous reports of minor damage at homes across Masterton and the wider Wairarapa. The quake was felt so strongly that Masterton Deputy Mayor Graham McClymont, who was playing golf in Eketahuna when it struck, feared Masterton would be “lying in a pile of rubble.” Near Masterton, Mauriceville residents John Hart and Karen Monks said their restored villa would need a second restoration to undo quake damage. “The house is pretty much trashed. There’s crockery everywhere, the fridge has emptied itself, we’ve got appliances on the floor, bookcases down, and there’s quite a few cracks around the house.” Large cracks also forced the closure of the main road to the tiny Tararua town of Pongaroa. A structural engineer will carry out a further examination on the three-storey residential Daniels Building in Masterton after a dangerous building declaration was issued yesterday, Tunnell said. In Manawatu, there were reports of chimneys collapsing, cracks appearing in walls, and television sets falling over. A Palmerston North resident said concrete had sunk around their home.  –Stuff