M5.3 Earthquake near Arthurs Point, New Zealand — 02 September 2026

Moderate earthquakes can damage poorly built or unreinforced structures near the epicentre, while well-engineered buildings typically escape serious harm. Shaking is often strong enough to wake sleeping residents over a wide area.

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake radiates roughly 1,344 tons of TNT equivalent in seismic energy.

The USGS assigns this earthquake a significance score of 439, which is below the USGS threshold of more than 600 for its significant-earthquake list. The ranking combines magnitude with available Did You Feel It responses and PAGER alert level; it is not a direct measurement of damage.

That is about 17:26 local solar time at the epicentre, during the afternoon.

This event was shallower than 98% of the 192 earthquakes recorded in New Zealand in our catalogue and stronger than 88% of them.

The epicentre was located at -44.4431, 168.3030 — 66 km north-northwest of Arthurs Point. The closest other recorded event was a magnitude 4.3 earthquake 34 km west-northwest of here on 25 August 2026.

The nearest other settlements in our records are Arthurs Point (34 km west-northwest), Waikowhai (91 km northeast), Fiordland Community (105 km southwest) and Te Anau (123 km southwest).

At 10 km this was a shallow earthquake. Shallow events release their energy close to the surface, so for a given magnitude they produce noticeably stronger shaking — and more damage — than deeper ones. Roughly three quarters of all earthquakes worldwide occur at shallow depths.

This catalogue does not ingest eyewitness responses, so it cannot confirm where this earthquake was felt. Based on magnitude alone, an event this size can be felt widely and may cause minor local damage. Its shallow focus makes stronger surface shaking more likely than for a deeper event of the same magnitude.

The USGS record does not carry a link to NOAA tsunami information. That field is not an all-clear and does not state whether a tsunami occurred. In this case, a damaging tsunami would be less likely because at M5.3 it falls below the magnitude 6.5 threshold that generally applies before a submarine earthquake displaces enough water to generate a damaging tsunami; it occurred inland rather than beneath the sea floor. For an active coastal alert, use tsunami.gov or your local warning authority.

No further earthquakes have been recorded within about 150 km of the epicentre since this event was recorded.

9 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or above have been logged within roughly 200 km of this epicentre in our catalogue. The strongest was a magnitude 5.9 event near Te Anau on 16 July 2026. This M5.3 event released about 7.9 times less energy than that event.

3 earthquakes have been recorded within 100 km of this epicentre in the past year, 1 of them in the past 30 days.

This earthquake is part of the September 2026 worldwide record, and of earthquakes in New Zealand during September 2026. Browse the full monthly archive to compare periods.