New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern discuss The country was lifting the coronavirus restrictions when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck near the capital city of Wellington on Monday morning. No injuries or damage were reported.
When the camera seemed to shake, Ardern was still smiling to the Newshub AM Show host Ryan Bridge that “we have only had a slight earthquake here, enough – a fair shake here.”
“If you see things moving behind me … Beehive moves a little more than most,” he added, referring to the executive wing of the New Zealand Parliament. Asked if he felt “safe and sound to continue the interview,” Ardern replied, “(I am) fine, I’m not under a chandelier, I look like I’m in a structurally good place.”
Ardern’s cold reaction quickly goes viral in twitter and other social media.
Like most New Zealanders, Ardern was accustomed to earthquakes. New Zealand is located in what is called the “Ring of Fire,” an active tectonic arc of 40,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) that stretches across much of the Pacific. Based on GeoNet, which monitors geological activity in the country, New Zealand experiences around 20,000 earthquakes every year, or between 50 and 80 per day, although most are too small to be felt by humans.
GeoNet said Monday’s earthquake was an earthquake the strongest so far in 2020, magnitude-5.4 topping that struck at the same location in January. It said the quake was followed by more than 45 aftershocks with sizes ranging from 1.7 to 4.4.
Finance Minister Grant Roberston the word there is a “big long rumble” that leads to an earthquake.
“Hopefully everything is fine in the Levin region,” he wrote on Twitter. “Not what we need right now.”
Ardern is not the only Kiwi politician who has a call interrupted by the event. Fleur Fitzsimmons, Labor councilor for South Paekawakawa, the word he was “talking on the phone with the Mayor about the earthquake that strengthened the Central Library when it struck!”
