Kōrero: Historic earthquakes

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Extent of shaking, Īnangahua earthquake, 24 May 1968 (1 o 2)

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The Modified Mercalli scale (from 1 to 12) measures earthquakes by the intensity of shaking observed. This map shows the extent of shaking from the Īnangahua earthquake of 24 May 1968. From an intensity of 8 at the epicentre near Īnangahua Junction, 40 kilometres east of Westport, the isoseismal lines spread outwards. Although the most damaging shaking was on the northern part of the West Coast, the earthquake was felt over much of New Zealand.

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Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Source: G. L. Downes, Atlas of isoseismal maps of New Zealand earthquakes. Lower Hutt: Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, 1995.

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Recording the Īnangahua earthquake

Te tuhi tohutoro mō tēnei whārangi:

Eileen McSaveney, 'Historic earthquakes - The 1968 Īnangahua earthquake', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/mi/interactive/4522/extent-of-shaking-inangahua-earthquake-24-may-1968 (accessed 7 June 2023)

He kōrero nā Eileen McSaveney, i tāngia i te 12 Jun 2006, reviewed & revised 28 Mar 2011, updated 1 Nov 2017

Tukunga

I was a 13year old living in

Irene Callaghan (not verified)
03 December 2022

I was a 13year old living in Westport at the time the earthquake happened and I remember hearing a noise like a large train thundering towards me from the direction of the hills. I was thrown to the floor and rolled under the wire wove bed. Our house was attached to the bakery and my father had to fight his way in the darkness past the large racks of cooling bread that were rolling across the bakehouse floor to get to our bedrooms. I was very glad to see the torch coming down the passage towards us. Everything on the East wall of the room was tipped over and a radio on a shelf on a South wall was still sitting there. I have memories of collecting rainwater in buckets under broken spouting and helping clean kitchen floors once the chimney was removed and it was safe. The preserves always seemed to be kept in top cupboards and beetroot mixed with broken glass made such a lovely mess. Television had just arrived in Westport and TV sets had fallen through broken shop front windows and were laying on the footpath of the main street. I remember watching out my bedroom window about one week after the main quake, and watching the waves in the lawn during a large aftershock until my mother draged me away from the window.

It was not the actual

Bill Lees (not verified)
30 November 2010

It was not the actual shaking, but the pronounced and persistent rattling of my neighbour's metal gate six metres from my bedroom window that awakened me suddenly in Wellington's western suburbs before dawn on May 24th, 1968. Surface waves originating from the 7.1 mag. Inangahua earthquake 180 kilometres west-southwest of my timber-frame home in Karori had started to propagate through the clay soil its concrete piles were embedded in. However, although the jolting motion I felt was pronounced, it was not violent, and I would rate it at MM 5. I seem to recall hearing the startled cry of a bird in the trees at the back of the property that, like me, had been awakened abruptly by the very sudden onset of the earthquake. I also remember hearing a kind of soft rumbling coming from deep inside the earth during this event. The most memorable thing about the shock for me was its duration, which I estimate to have been around 40 seconds. The whole experience is something I will never forget.

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Kōrero: Historic earthquakes

Extent of shaking, Īnangahua earthquake, 24 May 1968 (1 o 2)

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Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Te tuhi tohutoro mō tēnei whārangi:

Kōrero: Historic earthquakes

Extent of shaking, Īnangahua earthquake, 24 May 1968 (1 o 2)

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