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'Intense': Taranaki rattled by 5.3 early morning earthquake

By 1News Reporters
31 mins ago
File picture of a seismograph.

File picture of a seismograph. (Source: istock.com)

A "strong" magnitude 5.3 earthquake rattled Taranaki in the early hours of this morning.

According to GeoNet, the quake struck at around 3am, 25 kilometres east of New Plymouth at a depth of 11km.

The shaking was described as "strong" and was reported by over 7000 people.

On social media, one person described it as "intense".

"I was asleep and felt like something picked me up and shook the living crap out of me! Lots of stuff fell down. Still got the shakes now," they said.

Another wrote: "Scariest s*** ever."

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