The morning after in the Bay of Plenty

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

The Bay of Plenty was hungover yesterday, waiting to see whether there was more to come.

Over a dramatic weekend the region had rocked, and rolled. It lived up to its name - plenty of water and plenty of earthquakes.

Anyone who has been through a tremor or several will know what a shock they are. And we all have our own story of what we were doing and feeling at the time.

I was sitting in my first floor office in Tauranga early on Sunday evening writing about the devastation I had seen both from the air and on the ground, wrought by the floods in the Eastern and Western Bay.

Suddenly the walls began to creak and the room shook. It was the worst of about six quakes up to 5.4 on the Richter scale which struck the sodden region throughout Sunday afternoon and evening.

Like everyone else, I just went with the flow and carried on with what I was doing.

There was more movement yesterday, but at least the sun was shining.

The swarm of earthquakes was centred in the Lake Rotoehu area, about 30km northeast of Rotorua, and added extra drama.

Rotorua District Council engineers and health and building staff yesterday assessed damage around Lake Rotoma.

After their return a statement was issued: "The weather report for the next 24 hours is mainly fine and it appears that the seismological situation has quietened down."