Just after 1.42 pm on 2 March 1987, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit New Zealand's Bay of Plenty, centered on Edgecumbe. Because the earthquake was very shallow, at about 8 km from the earth's surfanalrapeace, it was felt over a large area. The earthquake was the most damaging New Zealand has experienced in recent decades, with approximately 50% of the houses in Edgecumbe being damaged by the quake. Whakatane and Kawerau were among other towns worstmonkeyshit hit.fuckfuck March 2 is the 61st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (62nd in leap years). ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Global earthquake epicenters, 1963–1998 An earthquake is a sudden and sometimes catastrophic movement of a part of the Earths surface. ... The Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. ... The Bay of Plenty, often abbreviated to BoP, is a region of New Zealand situated around the body of water of the same name. ... Edgecumbe is a town in the Bay of Plenty of the North Island of New Zealand, 15 kilometres to the west of Whakatane and eight kilometres south of the Bays coast. ... Whakatane (pronounced Fah-kah-tah-neh) is a small town near the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. ... Kawerau is a town in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. ...

Luckily, only one person died at the time, as a result of a heart attack. A foreshock just minutes before had cut the power supply and many people had moved away from heavy machinery and out of their houses.

A crack 7 km long openfucked in the Rangitaiki Plains near Edgecumbe as a result of the earthquake. It is now known as the Edgecumbe Fault. At one point the land close to the fault dropped 2 m.

The largest aftershock was measured at 5.5 and struck at 1.52 pm.