Most of the reports came from
the Wellington area but the quake was also felt by people as far away as Ashburton and New Plymouth.
Another 380 people reported feeling the earlier quake between Awatere Valley and Palmerston North.
Lower North Island residents shared their experience of the Seddon shakes on social media, including train user @myrlock who was on the train between Wairarapa and Wellington when the quakes hit.
The service was temporarily stopped at Featherston but is now back up and running.
"We got thru the tunnel incident free @TranzMetro @MetlinkWgt we were a little pensive, have arrived at #upperhutt #eqnz," @myrlock tweeted at 11.38am.
TranzMetro said the network had been cleared and services were resuming, but some scheduled trains had been cancelled and delayed.
Krystle Field of Wellington decided it was time for a break after the quake.
"Coffee will totally calm my shaky nerves after #eqnz right? #gulp", she tweeted.
Another earthquake was recorded east of Seddon at 12.16pm today. The 3.2-magnitude quake was 17km deep and described as light by GeoNet.
Wellington
Katrina Bennett reports Wellingtonians felt a light quake just after 10.30am.
"That was about 4.4, just located near Seddon.
"But then another followed not too long after that one and that one was quite strong. The building here did shake and swayed. A lot of people stopped their work and looked up because everyone here did feel it.
"That one there was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake, so that one was much stronger and again at the same location near Seddon."
Both were centred on Seddon in Marlborough.
The Fire Service's Southern Communications centre said a few minutes after the strong quake there were no reports of damage.
Kapiti and Hutt Valley
Callers from Levin and the Hutt Valley say they felt two earthquakes.
"We just had a lovely little shake," said one caller.
"We had two. We had one at 10.36am and one at 10.42am. One up in Upper Hutt and we felt it up the valley."
Seddon
Andy, who works at Tractor Repairs and Spares in Seddon, says the quake wasn't too severe.
"Just a short sharp jolt really, which we hadn't felt for some months, so we all sort-of looked at one another and said,' oh, here they come again.'
"Nah, just a short sharp jolt and it was all over."
Twitter responds
More to come
