A magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook Wellington and the upper South Island for about 40 seconds on Sunday.

The quake, occurred at 7:17 am local time (19:17 GMT Saturday) with an initial Richter scale magnitude 5.8, was centred 30 km east of Seddon, near South Island town of Blenheim, at a depth of 19 km, the New Zealand government geological agency GNS Science reported.

Xinhua reporters in Wellington Office felt the jolt, which was strongly, lasts about 40 seconds.

By 7:45 am, it had been followed by three others in the same area, measuring magnitude 4.3, 4.6 and 4.1 respectively.

A Civil Defence spokesman said there have been no reports of damage, other than a few items coming off shelves.

The Fire Service has not received any quake-related calls.

However, Tranz Metro said all train services in Wellington have been stopped following the quake and delays can be expected on all lines.

Within an hour of that earthquake, more than 6000 people had submitted felt reports to the GeoNet website.

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake occurred at 9:06 a.m on Friday beneath Cook Strait. It was 8km deep and lasted for about 20 seconds.

Aftershocks continued throughout the day, including a magnitude 4.5 quake near Seddon at a depth of 16km.