4.5 magnitude quake jolts Wellington - readers react
As the rumble hits at 10.07pm, one resident called it "a nasty little quake"; another the worst in three years. The official GNS map, plus more online reaction:
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Rich List
Use controls top left to zoom in. Orange dot shows where the epicentre, off the capital coast.
A small quake hit the capital around 10.07pm this evening.
GNS recorded the the quake as a 4.5 magnitude event, which hit 20km north west of Wellington, off the coast (see map above) with a focal depth of 40km.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries, or property damage.
Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree.
Political reporter Vernon Small called it "a nasty little quake".
Francis Till, a member of the prime minister's staff, tweeted that it "seemed pretty intense as Welly quakes go. Beehive rocked pretty well."
New Zealand Computer Society chief executive Paul Matthews called it "Certainly the largest I've felt in three years in Wellington, I think."
"[There was a] bit of a rumble. Very much sharp shaking here rather than a jolt. It went for a few seconds," Mr Matthews told NBR.
Not on the Christchurch scale
Checking out the Geonet report on the 10.07pm quake, Christchurch software developer Layton Duncan was, good humouredly, unimpressed, offering residents of the capital a "LOL".
According to Mr Duncan's back-of-the-envelop calculations, the Welly jolt had "around 1/500th of the energy of last week's here, or 1/8000th the energy of Sept 4th."
And certainly, as a 4.6 magnitude struck 10km west of Lyttleton at 10.42pm, 35 minutes after the Wellington quake - and just 2km deep - there was barely a peep on Twitter.
Chris Keall
Tue, 01 Mar 2011
Tue, 01 Mar 2011
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4.5 magnitude quake jolts Wellington - readers react
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