‘The painting on the wall was jumping’: Coromandel shook by a magnitude 4.3 earthquake

A 4.3 magnitude earthquake shook Coromandel residents tonight.

The 5 km deep shake was recorded 125 km north of Te Kaha shortly before 7:30 p.m.

GeoNet says the shaking would have been “unnoticeable,” but more than 200 people said they felt the shaking.

The shallow shaking was felt by several Coromandel and Thames residents.

The townspeople of Coromandel, Waihi, Paeroa, Ngatea, Pauanui and Puriri shared their experience of the earthquake online.

“We are in Cooks Beach and the paint on the wall was chipping,” said one person.

“My lights were swinging at Kopuarahi,” said another.

“One end of the sofa yes, another end of the sofa, not in Ngatea.”

A series of small earthquakes rocked Aotearoa Saturday night, and people from Blenheim to the Bay of Plenty felt the tremors.

Geonet said a magnitude 3.7 earthquake struck 25 kilometers southwest of Wellington shortly after 8:30 p.m. and was felt by more than 1,500 people.

Most of the people, more than 940, indicated that the shaking was only weak and more than 500 reported that the shaking they felt was mild.

Meanwhile, parts of Auckland, Waikato, Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty were shaken by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake that struck 125 kilometers north of Te Kaha.

The 7.53pm earthquake had a depth of 5 km and the shaking was imperceptible near the earthquake.

However, there were reports of people feeling shaking on the Coromandel Peninsula and Great Barrier Island.

There have also been several smaller earthquakes since then: at 8.05pm west of Taupo with a 2.2 rating, and at 8.20pm north of Te Kaha with a 2.7 rating.

Auckland is not typically shaken by earthquakes, but they are common in the Bay of Plenty, GNS Science seismologist John Ristau told the Herald last month.

“The last time there was anything of a reasonable size near Auckland was early 2019, when there were three magnitudes four,” he said.

“Those only had a couple hundred felt reports, not like the 2,500 we’ve had for this one, but it’s probably due to magnitude more than anything else.”