No tsunami after 7.1 earthquake

NEW ZEALAND – A tsunami warning issued following a powerful magnitude-7.1 earthquake that struck before dawn off the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island was later cancelled,The earthquake, which struck at 4.37am local time, prompted evacuations along the East Coast of the North Island and the upper South Island, but there were no reports of damage.

New Zealand’s Civil Defence Ministry said that while the tsunami threat had passed, it was still warning people to stay away from beaches due to strong, unpredictable currents over the next few hours.
Following the earthquake, a series of small tsunamis measuring less than 30-centimetres were recorded, prompting the warning.
Aftershocks are expected to last for several days.
Authorities said New Zealanders living on the north-east coast of the North Island who were advised to evacuate after the tremor were returning home.
Some beachside residents packed up emergency items and drove to higher ground while others reportedly rolled over and went back to sleep.
The tremor was estimated at a depth of around 30 kilometres off the coast, according to the US Geological Survey.
It was centred 167 kilometres from the nearest main town, Gisborne, which has a population of around 45,000.
Cook Islands News regional news editor Gray Clapham – who lives on the Gisborne coast at Wainui Beach – said he and his wife were woken up by the rolling nature of the earthquake but didn’t think it was significant enough to worry about evacuation.
His daughter and two grandchildren were not woken by the tremor. He said there was no evacuation alert that he was aware of.
“It wasn’t until the morning when my eldest daughter rang from England to see if we have survived that I twigged that the earthquake must have been more severe than it felt.
“I immediately went online and saw that the ‘tsunami evacuation’ of the entire East Coast was topping the headlines across the global news sites.
“It makes me wonder about the other big stories we read about in the news – the further away we are from the scene, the more dramatic these events seem to become.”
New Zealand is on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, which form part of the so-called “Ring of Fire”, and experiences up to 15,000 tremors a year. - PNC