{"id":588565,"date":"2026-09-03T04:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T04:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588565\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T04:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T04:06:12","slug":"bridge-reopens-following-quakes-in-lower-south-island-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588565\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridge reopens following quakes in lower South Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Locals have been left shaken following five earthquakes which struck in the lower South Island yesterday, including two above magnitude 5. <\/p>\n

Two shallow earthquakes struck near Milford Sound within an hour on Wednesday evening, measuring magnitude 5.5 and 5.6, which caused moderate shaking across the region. <\/p>\n

Thousands of people reported feeling the quakes, which struck northeast of Piopiotahi\/Milford Sound at a depth of 5km.<\/p>\n

In the hour between 7pm and 8pm there were three smaller “light” earthquakes in the region also reported on GeoNet. <\/p>\n

In an earlier post online, Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) said it was “a bit of a shaky one last night!” <\/p>\n

“Crews have inspected the road network following last night’s earthquakes and have cleared some minor rockfall on SH6 Kawarau Gorge,” a spokesperson said. <\/p>\n

Edith Cavell Bridge was closed for inspection and has since reopened after clearance from engineers. <\/p>\n

“Edith Cavell Bridge is now reopen following an inspection from engineers this morning. Thanks for your patience”” the council said online. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A sign pointing toward Milford Sound\/ Piopiotahi, in Southland. (File image). (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Otherwise, the council said conditions across the wider network were “mostly dry with temperatures ranging from 6C – 14C”. <\/p>\n

At 9.10pm last night, GeoNet said it expected further earthquakes to occur, with a small chance a larger earthquake could occur. <\/p>\n

“Most earthquakes will be of a smaller magnitude and unlikely to be felt.<\/p>\n

It said it had recorded 30 earthquakes in the area and were “regularly detecting new earthquakes”.<\/p>\n

“The earthquakes are occurring 15-20km south-east of the Alpine Fault.<\/p>\n

“While these earthquakes are close to the Alpine Fault, our sensor network in the area allows us to confidently locate them as occurring on a separate fault and producing different movement than what we would expect on the Alpine Fault.<\/p>\n

“These quakes were a mixture of strike-slip [sideways] and reverse [upwards] faulting,” it said. <\/p>\n

The owner of Mitre 10 in Te Anau said “there was a lot of noise but fortunately no major damage”.<\/p>\n

“We just had two cans of CRC fall off the shelf.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Locals have been left shaken following five earthquakes which struck in the lower South Island yesterday, including two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8215,1242,111,43,139,69,15488],"class_list":["post-588565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-earthquakes","tag-natural-disasters","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-southland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588565","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=588565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}