The tiny Hawke's Bay-Wairarapa border township of Pongaroa barely missed a beat as one of the area's biggest earthquakes of recent years hit the area on Monday night.
The quake just after 9pm measured 5.8 on the Richter scale and was centred 15km east of Pongaroa. It and two others later in the night have been among more than 20 quakes recorded by GeoNet in the Route 52 districts since the weekend.
The major shake, which was felt over a wide area of the lower North Island, was the biggest in the Hawke's Bay-Wairarapa region since a shake measuring 6.2 east of Eketahuna on January 20, last year.
That was the biggest since the most destructive in the region in the last 25 years, on May 13, 1990, a late Sunday afternoon jolt measuring 6.5, centred around Weber.
Known as the Mother's Day Earthquake, it caused widespread damage, felling numerous older chimneys and resulting in the demolition of at least one building in Dannevirke.