Strong 4.8 Earth quakes near Te Aroha rattle North Island

An earthquake has one again shaken the area as sections of the upper North Island slowly begin to recover after days of inundation. Just after two in the morning, a magnitude-4.8 tremor was felt by more than 11,000 individuals. It had a centre that was six kilometres deep and five kilometres south of Te Aroha. People were startled awake in places like Kaitaia, the soggy areas of Auckland, the Bay of Plenty, and the Coromandel, as well as down in Christchurch. After 40 minutes, a string of smaller aftershocks started to occur. As of now, there have been no reports of damage. Zane Burdett, a resident of Te Kuiti, told RNZ, "The weird thing was that I was really awake at the moment that it struck." About 100 kilometres separate Te Kuiti from Te Aroha.About 25 kilometres south of Morrinsville in Motumaoho, Kees Meinderts also had a difficult night. "I've experienced several earthquakes in my life, and I wasn't even in bed yet when I was sitting on the edge of the bed when I heard a lot of noise and thought, "Eh, what is going there?'" I initially assumed it was a large truck or something else instead of an earthquake. I was simply sitting on the bed like it was a rocking horse for a moment before there was a loud bang and a lot of noise. It lasted significantly longer, according to Meinderts, than the magnitude-5.1 earthquake that struck the area on January 4.The 92nd anniversary of the disastrous Napier earthquake, which claimed 256 lives, falls on the same day as this quake. After a week of torrential rain and floods, Geonet seismic duty officer Libby Abbot said the earthquake would have been a "jarring" experience. "Six kilometres is quite a far. Since Te Aroha is very close to the epicentre, folks in the area would have felt some pretty significant shaking. She predicted there will be additional aftershocks. The area is located in the Hauraki rift zone, which rises up from South Waikato and continues east of Putaruru and Tokoroa, past Te Aroha, and up along the western coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. As we all know, New Zealand experiences earthquakes frequently, therefore residents everywhere should be ready, according to Abbot.Fortunately, the Hauraki rift, which lies on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, is not as active as some other faultlines in Aotearoa. Abbot predicted that the rumbling on Friday morning wouldn't do any significant harm.