Largest quake of year in New Zealand, m=7.8

USGS 2009 earthquake statistics

The largest quake of 2009 to date, magnitude 7.8, happened today off the southern tip of New Zealand.

New Zealand Earthquake Report - Jul 15 2009 at 9:22 pm (NZST)
Magnitude 7.8

Latitude, Longitude - 45.75°S, 166.58°E
Focal Depth - 12 km
100 km north-west of Tuatapere
100 km south-west of Te Anau
160 km north-west of Invercargill
300 km west of Dunedin

New Zealand Seismograph Drum - Wether Hill Road (WHZ), Southland, New Zealand
This image represents one day's recording of the seismometer located near Wether Hill Road, in Southland, about 150 km from the epicenter.

The timestamp shown at the top right of the seismograph drum shown below is the time when this image was last refreshed. Each horizontal line (or trace) represents 30 minutes, each vertical line is spaced 1 minute apart; 24 hours of recording are displayed in total. The most recent signal is drawn at the bottom right hand corner of the drum. Then read the traces from right to left, bottom to top, to get from the most recent to the oldest signals. The trace will appear red if the signals are very large; this means they have been clipped to stop them overwriting too much of the surrounding image.

Maximum Modified Mercalli intensities of VII were indicated.

A tsunami warning was issued, but has been canceled.