Hawkes Bay residents were jolted by an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale, just before 10am this morning.
GeoNet reported that the tremor was centred 30km east of Waipukurau at a depth of 71km, and hit about 9.58am.
People reported feeling a "rocking" motion followed by "swaying".
While it appears there was no major damage across the region, some households experienced objects falling from shelves, with one woman saying her TV dropped from the wall.
Twitter users in Napier, Hastings and Palmerston North described the jolt on the social media website using the #eqnz hashtag.
