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Damage claims from last night's Hastings earthquake could total about $5 million, despite initial reports of little damage.
The 5.9 magnitude quake struck at 11.25pm yesterday and was centred about 10km southwest of Hastings at a depth of 30km. A 3.5 magnitude aftershock was recorded shortly after the first earthquake.
Earthquake Commission insurance manager Lance Dixon said this afternoon that 124 claims had been already been received for things such as damage to interior walls, chimneys, toilets and hot water cylinders.
It was early days but it looked like the total claims could run to about $5 million, he said.
"When you hear a report on the radio of no damage, we normally get a couple of hundred claims. The majority of the damage is inside properties," he said.
The first rush of claims normally happened in the first three or four weeks and tapered off until the three month claim period ran out.
Mr Dixon said the damage did not appear to be as bad, and the claims appeared smaller, than after the 6.8 magnitude earthquake which struck Gisborne before Christmas.
Hastings District Council operations services manager Kevin Deacon said just seven residents rang asking for their properties to be inspected. Building inspectors found nothing but superficial and cosmetic cracking.
"The building officers had a walk through town and there is no obvious sign of damage to buildings at all," Mr Deacon said.
Alarms were set off by the quake and the Napier-Gisborne railway line was closed while it was inspected for damage.
A bottle shop reported losing close to $10,000 worth of stock, but it appeared there was little damage.
The quake was strong enough to prompt Hastings Civil Defence to take the precaution of activating its emergency plan, but emergency services appeared surprised at a lack of response by the public.
A spokesman from the Hastings Fire Service said the quake rattled the building but not one emergency call was received.
"When it happened we thought `here we go', but there was just nothing," he said.
Police in Hastings and Napier said they had not heard of any significant damage as a result of the quake but there were reports of brief power outages in some suburbs.
- NZPA
Readers' experiences:
We have just moved here from the UK I was going to bed at 11:25 when it struck, the whole house was shaking the noise was the scariest thing I thought a truck was about to come through the wall it probably lasted about 45 secs to a minute I was surprised that when I looked out into the village of Havelock North there was no movement of people. The strangest thing was that the birds started singing as if it was dawn straight after. Welcome to New Zealand! We can laugh now but it was very scary at the time.
- Andrew Blenkinship
It is surprising how with my workmates across Napier how damage or experiences varied amongst them. For us we had a Foose Ball table leaning against a wall in the hallway get thrown across to the other wall and then scrapping down to the floor damaging the wall and taking chunks out of the front door. Two shelves collapsed on the top of the bookcase sending all contents to the floor and the 21\" TV in our room moved 4-5 inches across the top of the DVD player it was sitting on. There was the normal items fallen down in cupboards and pantries etc. The toilet floor was awash as the quake produced a tidal wave in the cistern which cascaded down both sides onto the floor. There were casualties unfortunately& we lost 3 good toilet rolls here, they will be missed. Fortunately an immediate inspection confirmed my Golf Clubs were OK and had slept right through it.
- David Cairns
You know that nice sleep you are having and the phones rings in your dream and you wake to hear it for real, well I was in such a place, riding on a train and the thing derailed for no reason and I woke up to the earthquake. What a hoot! No real damage just the inconvenience of my jewellery trees falling over onto the floor and trying not to step on things in the process of calming down my animals.
- Chrissy
