More earthquakes in Canterbury

1:18 pm on 26 December 2010

A further series of earthquakes is continuing in Canterbury. The strongest was magnitude 4.9 at 10.30am, at a depth of 12km.

Orion says power was off for an hour in the Christchurch central business district and Fendalton. The lines company says 40,000 customers were affected.

Orion's chief executive Roger Sutton says power was restored to all areas within an hour.

He says all equipment has worked as it should, but the shocks were close to transformers, and set off protective alarms inside.

It was the fifth quake since a magnitude 4.2 occurred at 2.07am.

A liquor store in Papanui says 70 boxes of liquor were knocked off its shelves.

A sixth occurred at 10.35am. It was magnitude 3.6 at a depth of 5km.

Others followed at 12.34pm (magnitude 3.7), 12.14pm (magnitude 2.9) and 11.53am (magnitude 3.5).

They were preceded by a magnitude 3.7 quake at 2.32am, magnitude 2.7 at 5.34am and magnitude 3.8 at 8.03am.

All were centred within 5km - 10km of Christchurch and were quite shallow.

Nerves on high

Andy Bean, of Bealey Avenue in central Christchurch, says his family were all awakened.

Merivale resident Simon Williams says they were short, sharp jolts, with brought back the memory of the September event.

He says most people were feeling as nervous as they were after the first quake.

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred in Canterbury at 4.35am on 4 September. Aftershocks have been occurring ever since.