GeoNet has issued an explanation as to why so many people across the country felt the quake that hit on Wednesday night.
At 11:49 pm on Wednesday, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit 25km south of Stratford.
The earthquake shook people all around the country with over 38,000 people reporting it to the GeoNet website. One person even felt it as far as Southland.
Geonet said on a Twitter post the country was rocked by the quake due to one of the Earth's tectonic plates colliding and sinking underneath the other plate.
"These deep earthquakes are typically widely felt, due to the subducting tectonic plate under the North Island," the post said. "Most of the quakes energy travels up and along the plate to the surface closer to the East Coast."
One Twitter user said that explains why they felt it down the Coast.
