FeR

Right on the homepage of TVNZ’s website.

Only after this incident (and after Jocelyn asking me if it often happens)…I found out it is quite common. What more, tremors are more often experienced in Hawke’s Bay because of the tectonic plates.

Hawke’92s Bay is located on the Australian Plate, about 150 km west of the Hikurangi Trough, which marks the subduction boundary between the Pacific and Australian Plates. At this latitude, the two plates are converging obliquely at about 42 mm/yr. The interface between the two plates is a large fault that dips about 6′b0 to the west near the Hikurangi Trough and steepens to about 25′b0 below Hawke’92s Bay.

Hawke’92s Bay’92s location above the subduction interface means that it is within a zone of high deformation, and as a consequence has many earthquakes.

(Taken from here)

The duty seismologist at GNS Earth Science says that people in the Hawke’s Bay are familiar with earthquakes.

(From OneNews)

I only read the part about sunny Hawke’s Bay before coming here, nothing about the quakes – despite reading about the 1931 disaster.

Warwick Smith says that the moderately sized quake would have shaken people a bit, but it would not have caused too much alarm.

However, he said New Zealand generally got a quake measuring about 6.0 once a year and Hawke’s Bay residents would be as hardened as anyone to quakes, being on the country’s main earthquake belt.

“Hawke’s Bay people know a lot about earthquakes and feel them all the time,” Smith said.

(From here)

But I’m not from Hawke’s Bay!
What about me?
I wasn’t told it was frequent!
Once a year?!
*faints*