New Zealand rattled by powerful earthquake - but nobody is killed or hurt

A strong earthquake has reportedly rattled New Zealand, sending people fleeing from buildings. The 5.9-magnitude quake hit at 3:36 pm local time with its epicentre about 70km from the South Island town of Kaikoura. The tremor was at a depth of 34 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The local GeoNet monitoring service said it was felt across the entire country, but was unlikely to cause damage because it was so deep. However, there were widespread outages on landline and mobile networks.

There’s been a little bit of damage, certainly not heaps, but yeah, there’s a lot of stuff fallen over.

Local resident James Hills

Some rail services were briefly suspended as tracks were inspected. Kaikoura District Council chief executive Stuart Grant said the quake felt like two tremors, describing the second as a “big jolt”. He said the council building was evacuated as a precaution but appeared undamaged. The quake struck in the same region as a 4.7 tremor on Thursday that jolted office buildings in Wellington.

Asia-Pacific Kaikoura