Last night's magnitude 4.0 earthquake in Canterbury could be felt by one Tauranga resident.

Deputy Mayor of Tauranga Kelvin Clout says he and his wife Katherine are currently down in Christchurch and were amongst the 7000-plus people GeoNet reports felt last night's quake.

'Coming from Tauranga earthquakes are something that we very rarely feel, so it really did get my attention and my wife's attention as well,” says Kelvin.

The magnitude 4.0 quake hit 10 kilometers east of The Garden City, off the coast of New Brighton Beach, at around 9.10pm last night.

Kelvin says he and Katherine were prepped to scamper if things got worse.

'It was the sort of thing where we had to decide to get ourselves ready in case there was another bigger one. We made sure that we had access to all of our warm clothing and we had our cellphones charged up in case we had to launch out of the hotel room if we had to.

'Fortunately there were no other incidents through the night so that was good.”

But the night's sleep had been disturbed, and one of them may have been rubbing tired eyes today.

'My wife Katherine, I don't think her sleep was as sound as it normally would be though,” says Kelvin.

'It certainly does give you a few nerves.”