Reasonable EarthQuake Felt in New Plymouth

Posted on by swiggs
Well tonight I was just sitting down entering things into my database and generally just browsing the net and then BAM. The house started movng and everyone in the house starts running around. Seems to be an exciting thing for the kids when the ground starts to move and the house creeks and shudders.
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I must admit that it is some sort of feeling of excitement when an EarthQuake does hit. I remember a number of years ago when I  too was a young kid being all excited after the earthquakes hit. This particular hit is the first one I have felt in many years and the first that has knoced something off a shelf. There was a sudden jolt and then a slow rumble lasting about 3 seconds. No damage was caused but hey still all exciting stuff.
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Here are the details of the quake.
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Universal Time: September 14 2008 at 9:25 – Sunday,
Latitude, Longitude 40.28°S, 174.53°E
Focal Depth 90 km
Richter magnitude 5.2
Region Wanganui Basin Location at sea located
  • 50 km south of Waitotara
  • 60 km south of Waverley
  • 60 km south-west of Wanganui
  • 110 km north of Wellington 

The picture to the right is an actual picture of a map that shows near real–time shaking intensity from New Zealand’s network of seismographs, I took a snapshot of this picture at about 9:55pm. Quite amazing really. Most of the movements are less than a magnitude of 3 but you can see the yellow spots where the intensity of the quake was felt stronger. The picture though gives a fairly clear picture of how much this country moves along our major faultlines. Just Look at Wellington!! 
This quake would have been felt in much of the North Island including the city Wellington, Levin, Palmerston North, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Hastings and as far up as Hamilton and in the South Island around the Nelson, Benheim and Picton areas all felt it and reports show that it was felt as far south as Rangiora.
If your interested you can get real time up to date information from 24/7 from www.geonet.org.nz 
If you felt the quake leave a comment
Deon Swiggs
Property Profits

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2 thoughts on “Reasonable EarthQuake Felt in New Plymouth”

  1. Im in new plymouth,
    i thought someone was under my bed at first! (Scary as i live by myself)
    Im sure there was another small one just afew hours ago? 1:43pm Monday?

  2. Kristen,
    Thanks for your comment. Yes it was a little of a shock and a surprise when it did hit. Wouldn’t have been very nice if there was someone under your bed. Must have been an awful feeling.
    I didn’t feel any other earthquakes this afternoon. There was a 3.3M in Porirua at 6.56am this morning. Was not felt to far though. That could have been an aftershock of the earlier bigger one.
    If there is any aftershocks I will post them up here.

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