magnitude 4.2 earthquake which hit Taranaki on Wednesday woke some people up and "scared the bajeezers" out of others.
Geonet described the quake as strong and reported it struck 30km north-west of Opunake at a depth of 6km at 1.49pm.
Early reports showed the quake was felt as far south as Wanaka along with the West Coast and as far north as Piopio.
However, GNS Science seismologist John Ristau said some of these would have been fakes and it was unlikely anyone south of Wellington would have actually felt the quake.
Ristau said there was a possibility Wednesday's quake was related to the magnitude 4.8 which hit last Thursday about 20km north-east of Opunake at a depth of 18km at 9.05am.
However, he said moderate quakes, greater than magnitude 4, weren't very common in Taranaki.
"There's the odd larger one but it doesn't happen too often."
Ristau was not aware of any damage from the quake.