Locals have been left shaken following five earthquakes which struck in the lower South Island yesterday, including two above magnitude 5.
Two shallow earthquakes struck near Milford Sound within an hour on Wednesday evening, measuring magnitude 5.5 and 5.6, which caused moderate shaking across the region.
Thousands of people reported feeling the quakes, which struck northeast of Piopiotahi/Milford Sound at a depth of 5km.
In the hour between 7pm and 8pm there were three smaller "light" earthquakes in the region also reported on GeoNet.
In an earlier post online, Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) said it was "a bit of a shaky one last night!"
"Crews have inspected the road network following last night's earthquakes and have cleared some minor rockfall on SH6 Kawarau Gorge," a spokesperson said.
Edith Cavell Bridge was closed for inspection and has since reopened after clearance from engineers.
"Edith Cavell Bridge is now reopen following an inspection from engineers this morning. Thanks for your patience"" the council said online.
Otherwise, the council said conditions across the wider network were "mostly dry with temperatures ranging from 6C - 14C".
At 9.10pm last night, GeoNet said it expected further earthquakes to occur, with a small chance a larger earthquake could occur.
"Most earthquakes will be of a smaller magnitude and unlikely to be felt.
It said it had recorded 30 earthquakes in the area and were "regularly detecting new earthquakes".
"The earthquakes are occurring 15-20km south-east of the Alpine Fault.
"While these earthquakes are close to the Alpine Fault, our sensor network in the area allows us to confidently locate them as occurring on a separate fault and producing different movement than what we would expect on the Alpine Fault.
"These quakes were a mixture of strike-slip [sideways] and reverse [upwards] faulting," it said.
The owner of Mitre 10 in Te Anau said "there was a lot of noise but fortunately no major damage".
"We just had two cans of CRC fall off the shelf."
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