A video from during last night’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake in New Zealand supposedly shows the rare phenomenon known as “earthquake lights” in action near Wellington.
From the description:
“Large earthquake hit New Zealand tonight so I started recording and during the peak of the shaking the sky began to light up with colours. Seen from Wellington out east over the ocean.”
Earthquake lights are not very well understood, with no real scientific consensus as to how they happen and some doubt as to whether or not they are actually real, but they tend to be described as bluish / whitish lights that appear during and occasionally before earthquakes.
Some sceptics reckon that the lights are caused by power transformers damaged in the quake blowing up, but considering these were over the ocean that seems pretty bloody unlikely.
Have a watch, it’s all over pretty quick but looks pretty bloody wild if you turn the video to half speed:
Source and photo: YouTube.
