Seddon, New Zealand

Story

Seddon is a small town in Marlborough, New Zealand. It is located 25km south of Blenheim, close to the mouths of the Awatere and Blind Rivers and the Lake Grassmere salt works. At the 2013 Census, the town had a population of 507 people.Salt and lime are major local industries, and the Awatere Valley is a developing wine region.The town was named for a former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Richard Seddon.EarthquakesSeddon has been close to the epicentres of several significant earthquakes.On the morning of 16 October 1848, Marlborough was struck by a damaging earthquake later estimated to be between magnitude 7.4 and 7.7. The epicentre of this earthquake was 45 km southeast of Seddon.On 23 April 1966, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake with an epicenter in Cook Strait, 40 km east of Seddon was most strongly felt in the town, damaging the chimney on almost every house in town. In July and August 2013 Seddon was closest settlement to the epicentres of a doublet earthquake event. First, in late July, a series of sizeable earthquakes struck the region over a period of a few days being felt strongly in Blenheim, Wellington and the rest of Central New Zealand, the strongest being a magnitude 6.5 and having its epicentre in Cook Strait. Then on 16 August 2013 a magnitude 6.6 earthquake with its epicentre under Lake Grassmere struck about 2:30 PM and was followed by a series of aftershocks over the next few hours, one of which was above magnitude 6 and several others above magnitude 5. This came just a few years after devastating earthquakes affected Christchurch, 285 km away.