March 2, 1987 Earthquake: North Island, Whakatani, Edgecumbe, New Zealand

Name: March 2, 1987 Earthquake: North Island, Whakatani, Edgecumbe, New Zealand
Start: 1987-03-02
Location: North Island, Whakatani, Edgecumbe, New Zealand

March 2, 1987 · M6.6 · 1 death · $210 million

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck North Island, Whakatani, Edgecumbe, New Zealand on March 2, 1987 at 01:42:34 UTC, 19 km below the surface. It killed 1 person.

Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date: March 2, 1987
Time: 01:42:34 UTC
Place: North Island, Whakatani, Edgecumbe, New Zealand
Magnitude: 6.6 (Ms)
Magnitude scales: Ms 6.6 · mb 5.9
Focal depth: 19 km (12 mi)
Intensity: X, extreme shaking, on the Modified Mercalli scale
Tsunami: None recorded
Epicenter: 37.965° S, 176.765° E
Country: New Zealand
Region: Central and South Pacific
USGS record: The USGS’s page for this earthquake

Ms: surface-wave magnitude. mb: body-wave (P-wave) magnitude. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.

The toll

Deaths: 1
Injuries: 25
Damage: $210 million

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

From Wikipedia

The 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake measured 6.5 on the moment magnitude scale and struck the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand at 1.42 pm on 2 March. The hypocentre was at a shallow depth of 8 km. The epicentre was 2.24 kilometres (1.39 mi) south-south-east of the town of Matatā, and 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north-north-west of Edgecumbe, on the Rangitaiki Plains (the floodplain of the Rangitaiki River, the Tarawera River and the Whakatāne River). It was the most damaging earthquake New Zealand had experienced since the 1968 Inangahua earthquake.

Text from Wikipedia, “1987 Edgecumbe earthquake”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.

What happened

The USGS’s account of the effects of this earthquake.

One person died from a heart attack, 25 injured and extensive damage (X) in the Edgecumbe-Kawerau-Whakatane area. Felt throughout much of North Island. Landslides and sandblows occurred. A southwest trending fault scarp 6 km. long had extension openings of up to 1 m. and as much as 1.5 m. of downthrow on the northwest side. Peak ground acceleration of 0.33 g. was recorded within 15 km. of the epicenter. Depth from broadband displacement seismograms. FAULT PLANE SOLUTION: P-Waves NP1:Strike=220 Dip=59 Slip=-158 NP2:Strike=118 Dip=71 Slip=-33 Principal Axes: (T) Plg=8 Azm=171 (P) Plg=36 Azm=76 Comment: The focal mechanism is poorly controlled and corresponds to strike-slip faulting with a large normal component. The preferred fault plane is not determined. CENTROID, MOMENT TENSOR (HRV) Data Used: GDSN, IDA L.P.B.: 10S, 27C M.W.: 10S, 23C Centroid Location: Origin Time 01:42:39.2 0.1 Lat 37.82S 0.02 Lon 177.03E 0.03 Dep 15.0 FIX Half-duration 6.8 Moment Tensor; Scale 10**18 Nm Mrr=-5.14 0.09 Mtt=2.27 0.10 Mff=2.87 0.12 Mrt=2.27 0.29 Mrf=1.72 0.31 Mtf=3.81 0.09 Principal Axes: (T) Val=7.04 Plg=13 Azm=314 (N) Val=-1.20 Plg=6 Azm=45 (P) Val=-5.84 Plg=76 Azm=158 Best Double Couple:Mo=6.4*10**18 NP1:Strike=36 Dip=32 Slip=-101 NP2:Strike=228 Dip=58 Slip=-83

From the USGS event page for usp00032x6. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

Magnitude estimates

The magnitudes the USGS catalog lists for this earthquake, by scale and by who computed them. NCEI’s own scales are in the table above.

Mag.	Scale	Computed by	Notes
6.5	Mw, moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Preferred · Reviewed
6.48	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
6.5	Mwc, centroid moment	Global CMT project	Preliminary

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

Reference #1250 lists $210 million damage.

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

#1053 National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) (1971 to 2013). Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE), a weekly and monthly publication, National Earthquake Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Golden, Colorado, 1971 to 2013.
#1054 McClelland, Lindsay, et al, editors (1980-1989). SEAN Bulletin, a monthly publication of the Scientific Event Alert Network of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
#1231 Berz, G. (1988). List of Major Natural Disasters, 1960-1987. Natural Hazards, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 97-99.
#1232 International Seismological Centre (1964-1990). Regional Catalogue of Earthquakes, 1964-1990, Edinburgh, Scotland.
#1250 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) (2001). EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium, link

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

Significant earthquakes of 1987 The 1900s Every quake the USGS located in 1987 Recent earthquakes near here This day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 5127. The written accounts and the magnitude estimates are from the USGS earthquake catalog, event usp00032x6, matched to this record by time, place and magnitude.