A seismologist says the shallow depth of last night's Paraparaumu earthquake is part of the reason it was so widely felt

26-thousand people reported feeling the magnitude 5.4 quake - a record number for the GeoNet agency.

That surpasses the number of reports for the 2016 Kaikoura quake, by more than 10-thousand.

It struck 45 km northwest of Paraparaumu at quarter to midnight and was 67 kilometres deep.

Murien Naguit from GNS Science says there are a lot of factors that come into it and depth is one of them.