A strong and hallow earthquake has struck in the ocean south of New Zealand’s main islands on July 11, 2017.
The magnitude 6.6 quake struck 458 kilometres (285 miles) south of the town of Bluff and near the uninhabited Auckland Islands and was felt by hundreds of people in the cities of Invercargill and Dunedin.
The quake was shallow, with a depth of only 10 kilometres (6 miles). There are no reports of serious damage or injuries and there was no threat of a tsunami as reported by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and New Zealand civil defence officials. Emergency authorities did not report any significant damage or injuries.
The earthquake was widely felt in much of the southern South Island. Hundreds of people in the cities of Invercargill and Dunedin reported feeling a light shaking.
A M5.0 ghost quake was recorded in Blenheim, when waves from the M6.4 arrived at many of the seismic stations in central New Zealand. Such earthquakes is a consequence of tuning the New Zealnd’s seismic network to have maximum sensitivity to earthquakes that matter most to New Zealanders, which are large earthquakes that occur on land or very close to our coastlines.
Ok that South Island shake-up was a M6.4, 190km South-West of Snares Island (below the South Island) #eqnz #sorryfortheconfusion
— GeoNet (@geonet) July 11, 2017
New Zealand sits on the Ring of Fire, an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes are common.
An earthquake in the New Zealand city of Christchurch in 2011 killed 185 people and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings.
