A strong 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off New Zealand Sunday, jolting the nation’s capital but no tsunami alert was issued and there were no reports of substantial damage

A strong 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck off New Zealand Sunday, jolting the nation's capital but no tsunami alert was issued and there were no reports of substantial damage.
  
The quake hit at 5:09 pm (0509 GMT) 57 kilometres (36 miles) south-southwest of Wellington at a depth of 14 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said. USGS initially reported the magnitude at 6.9.
  
It was followed minutes later by another quake of 5.5 and came about 10 hours after a 5.8 tremor in the same region which has been rocked by multiple quakes in recent days.
  
Dozens of earthquakes were recorded on Sunday with New Zealand's GeoNet earthquake monitoring service describing the 6.5 tremor which was felt widely as "severe".
  
"There was a rocking and rattling which lasted about 30 seconds," a resident in the South Island resort town of Nelson told AFP.
  
The fire service received multiple calls to assist people trapped in elevators in Wellington and the tremor also set off sprinklers in city buildings and cut electricity supplies in many areas.