Whakatane hit by strong tremor

Press, 12 May 1987, Page 2

Whakatane hit by strong tremor

PA Hamilton Whakatane was yesterday hit by the strongest earth tremor since the distastrous March quakes. Constable Jim Downie said he was woken at 5.12 a.m. by a tremor which measured 4.3 on the Richter scale in Wellington.

He said it would have woken anyone and described it as one of the better ones to shake the town. He said he now felt blase about the tremors. Constable Downie said it was the third in the last five days but there was no damage from the shakes.

Dr Warwick Smith of the Seismological Obser-

vatory in Wellington said tremors this strong were to be expected this long after the first violent earthquakes. However, tremors were not as frequent as previously.

The jolt followed a fresh swarm of earthquakes felt in the central Bay of Plenty at the week-end, which Tauranga observers said appeared to be increasing in frequency yesterday. A Matata resident, Mrs Bronwyn Joyce, said minor quakes were occurring every five minutes by mid-morning. The latest swarm had continued throughout the

week-end. "Initially the jolts were coming about every 10 minutes on Saturday. But they have begun to speed up,” she said.

“You don’t feel them, but the house clearly creaks each time, and there also seems to be radio interference simultaneously.” Mrs Joyce said she was not in a position to say if things were building up for another big earthquake in the district. “Lam no expert on that. I don’t really understand why these things happen,” she said. “But I am certainly apprehensive. Something is going on round here.”