South Islanders have been shaken by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake, the strongest tremor to hit New Zealand this year.
The quake was centred in the Ashburton Lakes region of Canterbury, about 120km west of Christchurch, with a shallow depth of 11km.
Originally categorised as a 5.8 magnitude at 9.14am on Wednesday, it was revised to 6.4 and then finally to 6.0 by monitoring agency GNS Science.
