aikato earthquakes good reminder for 72-hour plan

Today's Waikato earthquakes provide a good reminder to make sure we can take care of ourselves for 72 hours without outside help.

Since Wednesday, we've had two moderate intensity earthquakes followed by several smaller ones a few kilometres west of Waharoa.

Normally, a couple of moderate intensity earthquakes are not newsworthy; but these are slightly less common in this area than other parts of the country.

At this point, It’s still too early to call it a swarm because we've had only a small number of earthquakes in total; six in two days.

However, we have had several moderate intensity earthquakes in this area that have been associated with swarms in the past. The last was Te Aroha in 2005, approximately 30 kilometres north east of this week’s earthquakes, with more than 30 earthquakes going on for several weeks.

The first earthquake was a magnitude 3.6 on Wednesday 5 November at 3:37 p.m. The largest earthquake so far was a magnitude 3.9 that occurred at 3:43 this morning and 700 residents throughout the Bay of Plenty and Waikato region reported feeling the quake.

Thames-Coromandel District Council's Emergency Public Information Manager, Drew Mehrtens, says this is a good reminder for all of us to make sure we are able to take care of ourselves for 72 hours - with supplies including food, water and go bags.

"This would be a good opportunity to check up on your supplies and your household plan," he says. "You never know when you might need them."

Geonet has the latest information on the Waikato earthquakes here:

http://info.geonet.org.nz/display/quake/2014/11/07/Moderate+earthquakes+rattle+Waikato+region

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