Sharp earthquake in upper North Island

A sharp earthquake has been felt in the upper North Island.

Geonet's initial reading is that it had a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter Scale.

It was centred 10 kilometres northeast of Taupo and was 108 kilometres deep.

It's been felt from Wellington to Tauranga.

Newstalk ZB's Rotorua reporter, Adam Walker, says it was felt there as a gentle swaying that lasted ten to 12 seconds.

"Just the seat swayed back and forth, and I could just see everything just pop up and down a little bit. Turned to one of my colleagues through my glass window, and she sort of looked a bit shocked and looked around the office and said 'Is that an earthquake?'. And we looked at each other and went 'Yeah, yeah it was."

GNS Seismologist John Ristau says the shake is not particularly unusual.

"These large, deep earthquakes in the central North Island are actually not all that uncommon. In fact we had one just earlier this week, on Monday."

It's was felt by our reporter Murray Robertson in Gisborne.

"I was sitting in the chair at the time and everything started to move: the chair, me, the table I was sitting down at and my cup of coffee. It rolled and rocked for about 20-25 seconds at the most, quite a reasonable little shake."

Ann

from Tauranga, told Bruce Russell on air it brought back memories of the 1987 Edgecumbe quake.

"I was sitting on the couch and the couch started shaking badly and then the china cabinet started rattling rather badly."

Geonet is also reporting a 3.5 magnitude earthquake has struck 15km southwest of Ruatoria.

It was recorded as a surface shake.

Photo: Supplied