4 Jul 2016

Quake strikes near Seddon

5:02 pm on 4 July 2016

An earthquake near Seddon has been felt in Marlborough and Wellington.

Geonet said the 'moderate' 4.7 magnitude quake was 19km south of Seddon and at depth of 22km.

Earthquake geonet screenshot

The quake struck near Seddon. Photo: SCREENSHOT /GeoNet

It struck at 12.45pm and about 500 people, from Nelson and Blenheim to Wellington and the Kapiti Coast reported to Geonet that they had felt the quake.

The site manager of Dominion Salt saltworks at Lake Grassmere near Seddon said the afternoon's earthquake was no worse than the wind gusts they had experiencing recently.

Euan McLeish said the plant was still being managed from a collection of Portacom sheds after the large earthquakes of 2013 wiped out many of its buildings.

"It was a short sharp one, but to be honest a lot of wind gusts around here, a lot of people thought it was just a wind gust. It wasn't much of concern to us or our people, no damage."

He said today's was the first quake felt there in the past few weeks.