{"id":224578,"date":"2026-01-09T06:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224578\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:46:09","slug":"5-4-magnitude-earthquake-rattles-new-zealands-north-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224578\/","title":{"rendered":"5.4-magnitude earthquake rattles New Zealand\u2019s North Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck New Zealand\u2019s North Island on Friday morning, with light to moderate shaking felt across large parts of the country. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"241\" data-end=\"423\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/news\/strong-55-earthquake-strikes-near-ecuador-peru-border\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">quake<\/a> occurred at 8:29 a.m. local time, about 10 kilometers southwest of Waverley in South Taranaki, at a depth of 107 kilometers, according to official seismic data from GeoNet, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News.Az<\/a> reports, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/swikblog.com\/magnitude-5-4-earthquake-central-north-island-new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">foreign media<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"425\" data-end=\"721\">GeoNet said it received more than 14,000 \u201cfelt it\u201d reports within a short period, indicating the tremor was widely experienced well beyond the epicenter.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"425\" data-end=\"721\">Residents reported feeling the quake in areas including Blenheim, Hamilton, Wellington, and other parts of the central and lower North Island.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"723\" data-end=\"987\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">Because the earthquake struck deep underground, many people described the shaking as a rolling or swaying motion rather than a sharp jolt. Near the epicenter, the shaking was generally classified as light, and there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck New Zealand\u2019s North Island on Friday morning, with light to moderate shaking felt&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6752,111,43,139,81938,69,111249],"class_list":{"0":"post-224578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-earthquake","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-north-island","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-tremor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}