An NZ Herald reporter woken by the strong shake in Wellington said it reminded her of the Kaikōura quake.
“It kept going really strongly and I was thinking, ‘Is this going to get worse?’. I kept thinking back to the Kaikōura quake.”
Herald readers described the quake as “scary” and “heavy”.
“Sleeping on the first floor of five in a concrete hostel,” said Sheryl McFarlane. “It was a really scary experience with everything shaking and rolling.
“I wondered if those were [my] last moments at 5.09am.”
“I felt it, the loud rumbling, then the whole building shook,” said Alanna McCabe. “I was asleep. The noise of it coming woke me, then the heavy shaking.”
Suzanne Levesque said: “We’re staying in a hotel and felt the long, loud rumble, then an even louder boom, [a] crashing sound - it was super-strong.
“Our hotel is very earthquake-ready so nothing was shaken to the ground; everything has been bolted down. I now realise why.”
Wellingtonians described the quake on social media as “nasty” and “sizeable”.
“So much for sleeping in,” said one person on the Kāpiti Coast. “5.8-[magnitude] rattled me good.”
“Was crazy. My youngest woke up first in her cot, I almost ran to get my kids,” a resident said on Facebook. “You could definitely hear the whole house shaking. It started off as just a small shake, then out of no where [sic] this huge shake starts.”
“I’m in Wellington City and it literally shook me out of bed,” another person said. “Definitely the most scariest [sic] shake I’ve been in.”
The National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) said there was no tsunami threat from the quake.
Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office (WREMO) regional manager Jeremy Holmes said the quake was a “decent shake” which could have caused minor damage.
“We encourage people to check their properties and report any issues to their landlord or local council,” he said.
“This is a timely reminder that earthquakes can happen anytime. The correct action to take in an earthquake: drop, cover and hold. If you are in bed, stay, cover and hold.”
Nema had advised there was no tsunami threat as a result of the quake.
Councils, emergency services and utilities were out conducting checks. So far, there have been no electricity or water outages. State highways, trains and Wellington Airport are unaffected.