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Bottles crashed to shop floors and alarms were set off but Hawke's Bay residents are being told they are lucky Monday night's earthquake caused no major damage.
The quake, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, struck near Bridge Pa just before 11:30pm on Monday night.
People in the area described a jolt followed by a rumble and 30 seconds of rolling. It had a depth of 30km and was centred 10 km south-west of Hastings.
It was felt across the lower North Island as far away as Wellington.
Hastings residents have reported broken windows and minor damage and items falling from shelves, while there are a number of fallen trees.
The suburbs of Maraenui and Taradale temporarily lost power.
Hastings and Gisborne Police say there has been no major damage or injuries but the Ministry of Civil Defence says the National Crisis Management Centre is still monitoring the situation.
The mayor of Hastings has met with Civil Defence to find out how much damage was caused the quake.
Mayor Lawrence Yule says at this stage it appears there is been no significant damage around the town.
Hawke's Bay residents say they appear to have got off lightly considering the strength of the earthquake.
The quake was strong enough to prompt Hastings Civil Defence to take the precaution of activating its emergency plan, but emergency services appeared surprised at a lack of response by the public.
A spokesman from the Hastings Fire Service said the quake rattled the building but not one emergency call was received.
"When it happened we thought `here we go', but there was just nothing," he said.
The duty seismologist at
GNS Earth Science says that people in the Hawke's
Bay are familiar with earthquakes.
Warwick Smith says that the moderately sized quake would have
shaken people a bi, but it would not have caused too much
alarm.
However, he said New Zealand generally got a quake measuring about 6.0 once a year and Hawke's Bay residents would be as hardened as anyone to quakes, being on the country's main earthquake belt.
"Hawke's Bay people know a lot about earthquakes and feel them all the time," Smith said.
He said residents were likely to be very aware of the 1931 quake which devastated the region and would nevertheless get a fright when big quakes struck.
"The depth is about 30km, which is pretty common for that part of the country, had it been shallower like they get in the Bay of Plenty...then you are closer to it and the shaking would have been greater."
The Earthquake Commission is expecting more than 2,000 claims from the quake. Earthquake Commission Insurance Manager Lance Dixon says they have already received half a dozen claims.
However he has just run a model to determine what to expect from
a quake of that magnitude, and says the number of claims is likely
to top 2,000, at a cost of millions of dollars.
