FITS Deprecation Notice
The FITS data base is being deprecated on the 31st March 2025.
The data is being migrated to Tilde and will be available through the API and visualization interfaces.
You can check on the status of the different data sets on our FITS System Deprecation: Transition to Tilde API page.
GeoNet collects information about the intensity of shaking that people experienced during an earthquake. There have been a few different varieties of reports in the history of collecting this data. Today, GeoNet collects Felt Rapid reports based on a cartoon representation of shaking. After very large earthquakes we provide an additional long form survey, Felt Detailed, for those who would like to provide more information.
Data collected by Felt Rapid is available through the GeoNet API using the reported intensity options.
Examples:
For the reports in the last hour:
http://api.geonet.org.nz/intensity?type=reported
For a particular event such as the Kaikōura M7.8:
http://api.geonet.org.nz/intensity?type=reported&publicID=2016p858000
These queries return data in a GeoJSON format.
For access to other felt data such as felt detailed please contact us
Data is aggregated and we do not distribute any personal information, such as specific locations or addresses.
We group the reports using geohashing - We use the address to look up a location (latitude, longitude) and we convert this to a 20 character geohash. We then shorten the geohash to group the locations into larger rectangles. It's impossible to go from the short geohash back to the original location. When you zoom in really close on the maps you can see the grid pattern caused by the short geohash.