The shallow tremor hit just after 11:00 pm local time (1000 GMT), some 90 kilometres (57 miles) from the South Island city of Christchurch, according to the agency. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a warning following the quake and there were no immediate reports of casualties. The New Zealand government's GeoNet website said the quake was "felt widely" throughout the country and warned citizens to watch out for aftershocks. "We were asleep and woken to the house shaking, it kept going and going and felt like it was going to build up," she told AFP. In February 2011, a 6.3 earthquake left 185 people dead in the South Island city of Christhurch.

Source: The Nation Bangkok November 13, 2016 12:57 UTC