A series of earthquakes near Milford Sound have rattled parts of the South.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first, a\u00a05.5-magnitue moderate quake\u00a0was recorded at 6.13pm on Wednesday,\u00a05km deep and\u00a0\u00a0its epicentre was 40km north-east of Milford Sound in Southland, GeoNet said.<\/p>\n
It was followed by another moderate 5.7 quake at 6.57pm, also at a depth of 5km, and\u00a035km north-east of Milford Sound.<\/p>\n
An ODT reporter in Queenstown said there was \u201csignificant shaking\u201d from both.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These tremors were also widely felt in the South\u00a0including W\u0101naka, Alexandra, Dunedin, Milton, Clutha, Invercargill,\u00a0Waimate and Oamaru.<\/p>\n
They were followed by\u00a0weaker quakes of 4.8 magnitude\u00a0at 7.12pm, 4.6 at 7.39pm and 3.8 at 8.05pm. All\u00a0were 5km deep and at the same locations as the stronger ones.<\/p>\n
On social media, some people described the stronger\u00a0quakes as \u201cscary\u201d and \u201cdecent shakes\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutside for the first. Inside for the second. Enough for me to grab the child.\u201d<\/p>\n
A woman in the Dunedin suburb of St Kilda said it \u201cgave me a hell of a fright\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another\u00a0woman was in a car for the first\u00a0one \u201cand\u00a0it was rocking!\u201d.<\/p>\n
In Invercargill, a woman reported feeling\u00a0swaying that lasted about a minute.<\/p>\n
Another woman in Alexandra said it was “quite scary. Loud boom here before the shake arrived.”<\/p>\n
Thousands of people reported the quakes to GeoNet.<\/p>\n
Milford Road, Queenstown bridge closed\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Milford Road\u00a0in Southland\u00a0 (State Highway 94) was closed at 2pm on Wednesday due to a moderate risk of avalanche.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MetService had\u00a0forecast rain and\u00a0gusty northwesterly winds for the area.<\/p>\n
The highway\u00a0was expected to reopen by 10am on Thursday, once inspections were complete, but could close at night due to snow from early on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
In Queenstown, the\u00a0Edith Cavell Bridge has been closed.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Queenstown Lakes District Council advised as the\u00a0bridge is a historical asset with heritage status, an inspection is\u00a0needed following the quakes.<\/p>\n
Traffic from Arthurs Point would need to detour via Malaghans Rd in Dalefield, it advised.<\/p>\n
“Engineers will inspect the bridge at first light tomorrow morning and we’ll provide a further update when we know more.<\/p>\n
“Please also take care around our alpine passes like Crown Range Road as debris caused by the recent earthquake could be possible.”<\/p>\n
– Allied Media\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A series of earthquakes near Milford Sound have rattled parts of the South.\u00a0 The first, a\u00a05.5-magnitue moderate quake\u00a0was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-588149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588149","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=588149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}