Magnitude 6 Earthquake Shakes NZ, No Serious Damage

News Desk

Wellington: A magnitude 6.0 earthquake with strong shaking shook New Zealand’s South Island on Wednesday.

According to GeoNet, the earthquake occurred at 9:14 a.m. (2114 GMT Tuesday) and was 11km deep and located within 45km north of Geraldine. It felt widely throughout the Canterbury region.

So far, there have been no reports of any damage, informed GeoNet which monitors geological hazards in New Zealand.

The quake was centred in the Rangitata Gorge area, where two identified active faults meet – the Ben McLeod Fault and the Lake Heron Fault.

There are no known historical quakes in this region above magnitude 5. The nearby large faults are estimated, from landform evidence, to have each ruptured several times in the recent geological past (within the last 18,000 years), but not since European records began.

The epicentre of today’s earthquake lies south-east of more active regions and 70km from the Alpine Fault.