A powerful 7.
4 magnitude earthquake shook New Zealand and sparked tsunami fears on Friday around 1 am local time.
According to the reports, minutes after the tremors a warning of a potential tsunami had been released whereas the alert was later downgraded with experts suggesting there is no tsunami threat to either New Zealand or neighboring Australia.
The epicenter of the powerful earthquake was located off the northern coast and south of the Kermadec Islands whereas the quake occurred at sea at the depth of around twenty miles.
According to the reports, the earthquake was the strongest in the country since the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck Kaikoura back in November 2016.
Following the tremors, the National Emergency Management Agency issued a warning to coastal regions saying unusual currents and unpredictable surges might follow as a result of the quake.
As GeoNet claimed, the earthquake is believed to be felt by some nine thousand people living mostly in the coastal areas on the east of New Zealand.
Despite the earthquake measuring 7.4 in magnitude, the experts suggested it had a low shaking intensity due to being located far off the coast and deep beneath the sea surface.
govt.point 5 | nz – Pictured Kermadec Islands
“Our shaking intensity scale gives the impact of an earthquake on people living on the earth’s surface, instead of magnitude which is the energy released during an earthquake, and so it can be more useful as an indicator of the earthquake’s significance to the community,” scientists Dr.point 294 |
David Burbidge and Dr.point 19 | William Power of GNS explained.point 46 | 1
“This earthquake was felt widely along the East Coast of New Zealand as a large, shallow earthquake like this produces strong low-frequency surface waves which should travel nicely through the crust along the plate boundary.”
As Dr. Jose Borrero of eCoast Ltd added, the earthquake didn’t have the potential to trigger a significant tsunami due to being a ‘strike-slip’ quake.
“This morning’s quake was also a ‘strike slip’ quake – meaning the motion was side-to-side and not up and down, so the amount of seafloor displacement was small and so was the subsequent tsunami,” he said.
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