New Zealand, December 17: New Zealand has cemented its reputation as one of the world’s shakiest places with statistics showing it quivers 60 times a day.
New figures show the little nation, sometimes referred to as the Shakey Isles, shook a shocking 16,655 times between March 1 and December 12.
The hottest spot for earthquakes was the famed southern region of Fiordland, where the second biggest quake seen in the world this year struck in July.
The 7.8-magnitude quake was only eclipsed by the Samoan quake in September which measured 8 on the Richter Scale and triggered a killer tsunami.This intense seismic activity is second nature to New Zealand.
A long fault line runs the length of the country where the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates grind against one another. The result is dozens of active volcanic cones, majestic peaks, glaciers of grinding ice, tremors and bubbling geothermal activity.
Information researcher Chris McDowall compiled the record of quakes, revealing that despite the alarmingly high number, 2009 was no more seismic than other years.
But he reassured Kiwis that most were too small to be felt.
“They are not really quakes in a way. They’re well under two [on the Richter Scale] and they are very small and very deep.”
The July 15 quake definitely was, however, and was so violent it jolted the South Island 30cm closer to Australia.
The region managed to escape damage although because it struck 30km underground, triggering a motion “more like a lurch than a snap”, the country’s seismic monitoring service, Geonet, said.
It was the biggest quake New Zealand had seen since a deadly eastern North Island earthquake in 1931.
—Agencies