A swarm of light to weak earthquakes have been hitting Bay of Plenty. Photo: Geonet
Some Kawerau businesses have been forced to close as they pick up the pieces following a swarm of earthquakes since early morning.
The Bay of Plenty region has been rocked by a series of quakes, with the largest 4.8 magnitude.
Even more are likely to have occurred than were recorded in the swarm of events, GNS Science said.
The tremors occurred south west of Kawarau with more than 110 recorded from the early hours.
The first shake was a magnitude 3.4 at 3.29am with the strongest this morning, a 4.8 quake at 4.46am.
The magnitude 3.4 was three kilometres deep and 25 kilometres southwest of Whakatane, near Kawerau.
Hammer Hardware owner Murray Evans said they have been cleaning up the store all morning - losing their trade for the day.
"We just had another after shock about three minutes ago so we are reluctant to put anything back on the shelves at the moment until we can keep it on the shelves basically."
Evans said his staff are feeling scared and anxious as they anticipate another shake.
GNS duty seismologist Elizabeth Abbott said another quake just before 9am was a magnitude 4.7, but some were so small they were undetectable.
"There will be a number that are so small that we can't locate them and they won't be felt.
"They will have a rating but they'll be less than 2. We can get a magnitude from anywhere from zero, effectively I guess, to above 9, which is super huge."
Abbott said swarms were common in the volcanic region with a similar sequence of quakes last seen in 2018 and 2019 near Kawarau.
"Certainly swarms are uncomfortable and unsettling cause it's so many little earthquakes all at once, but we can't predict earthquakes.
"We don't know when the big one is going to come so the best thing to do is be prepared and I would just remind people again that swarms are not anomalous in this region. We would expect them."
In a tweet, GeoNet said: "Feeling earthquakes close together in time can be unsettling, but this is typical activity for the area, and our team is keeping an eye on things."
A swarm of earthquakes has been occurring tonight south west of Kawerau, felt across the Bay of Plenty. We have recorded more than 40 earthquakes so far, the largest of which have been a M4.8 and M4.6. This swarm is in a similar area to swarms that occurred in 2018 and 2019. 1/2
— GeoNet (@geonet) March 17, 2023
