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The specific area affected was Milford Sound, in the touristic region of Fiordland in New Zealand’s South Island. Thousands of locals reported having felt the earthquake, which was located at a depth of 5km (3 miles).

Locals took to Geonet record that have felt the earthquake

There were no immediate infrastructural damage or injuries reported.

The trembling was felt throughout lower South Island in regions such as Queenstown, Wanaka, Te Anau, Alexandra and Dunedin.

Smaller magnitude earthquakes took place after the main temblor.

“We certainly felt it. We’ve got cars out the front here and they were just rolling around in the car park there,” Helen Archer, a resident of Te Anau township, told the New Zealand Herald.

“It was just rolling. The two of us here feel a bit car-sick or sea-sick still.”

Milford Sound on the west coast of the South Island is home to rare marine habitats and originated from old glaciers.

New Zealand is situated on the “Ring of Fire”, which is still seismically active.

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The large area features a 40,000-km (24,855-mile) arc of volcanoes and ocean trenches stretching along much of the Pacific Ocean.

Christchurch, in the South Island, had a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 2011 that left 185 deaths.

A 7.8 magnitude tremor in 2016 caused billions of dollars worth of destruction and left two deaths in the South Island town of Kaikoura.

The news comes after GNS seismologist John Ristau said the new group of earthquakes should not be a matter of concern.

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“There’s nothing unusual going on in New Zealand that doesn’t happen all the time,” says Dr Ristau.

“New Zealand just gets earthquakes all the time and that’s just part and parcel of New Zealand sitting directly over top of the boundary between two huge tectonic plates that are crashing together and moving side-by-side past each other.”

Compared with other countries, Dr Ristau says New Zealand is “one of the more seismically active countries”.

“So we do get our fair share of earthquakes and a lot more than most other places in the world.

“In the last year we’ve located over 20,000 earthquakes in New Zealand in the offshore region.”

He added that most earthquakes are magnitude 1 and 2, which means they far too small for people to feel.

“But we probably have 200-300 every year that people feel and the one, I guess, nice advantage is that most of the bigger ones occur offshore so that tends to mitigate the damage they might do.”

Dr Ristau says it is just an accidental happening that there has been a series of earthquakes within a few days of each other.

“Aside from the larger tectonic picture of New Zealand sitting on top of this plate boundary, there is no connection.”

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