KEY POINTS:
A "thunderous" noise woke many Matata residents from their sleep early yesterday morning before the onset of what some are saying was the biggest earthquake felt in the region this year.
"You could hear it coming," said Matata Superfoods owner Charlie Semmens.
"We've had a few this week,
but it was definitely the biggest one I've felt. I was sleeping and the noise woke me up before it hit.
"Things rattled, hell yes, but only one thing of ours fell off, and that was a set of glass white elephants that were on the TV. In the shop all we could find that had fallen off the shelf was one tin of apple sauce."
He said a series of other jolts felt last week were tiny. Earthquakes were a regular feature of living in the eastern Bay of Plenty, and locals normally took the trembles in their stride.
"All the talk about the quakes comes from people out of town. But we're sitting on a time bomb here, I reckon. When the big guy comes it's going to come with a hell of a bang."
According to GNS Science, yesterday morning's earthquake - which came just as the All Blacks were wrapping up their match against Romania - measured 4.7 on the Richter scale. It happened at 1.12am and was centred 10km northeast of the township at a depth of 2km.
An aftershock measuring 4.5 on the scale followed one minute later.
GNS Science said it would have been felt in Tauranga, Whakatane and Kawerau and was the largest event in a long-running swarm of quakes near Matata.
Whakatane resident Sandy Shallcross said she and two friends were watching a DVD when they felt the tremors.
"It shook my house all right. It was a good shake and it rolled. They always frighten me. There were two good jolts in a row."
She said the earthquake had put her on edge, and she was readying herself to take cover but it was over before she could act.
Lynn Honan at Matata's motor camp said the noise was followed by a sharp shock. "It was like boom, boom."
On Friday, a 3.7 magnitude quake struck near Matata, and six deeper quakes, ranging between 3 and 4.9, were recorded on Wednesday, with two further shakes last Monday and Tuesday. The first in the series was on September 17.
GNS Science volcanologist Brad Scott said last week that Mt Ruapehu's eruption on Tuesday was unrelated to the series of earthquakes in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
New Zealand's position on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific plates was the reason for the large number of earthquakes, according to GNS Science.
Underneath New Zealand these huge plates ground together in three distinct ways.
To the east of the North Island, the Pacific plate gets forced beneath the Australian plate, and under the South Island the two plates push past each other sideways. To the south of New Zealand, the Australian plate gets forced under the Pacific plate.
