"More than 2000 felt reports for this one, a M3.7 earthquake with light shaking. It's a reminder that ten years on, the Canterbury aftershock sequence is still ongoing," GeoNet wrote on Twitter.
Tremors were registered at 5:14 a.m. local time (17:14 GMT on Friday). The epicentre was located 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) east of the city of Christchurch, at the depth of 6 kilometres.
The island nation also felt aftershocks later in the day. The shocks, standing at a magnitude of 2.9, were registered 5 kilometres south-east of the town of Seddon at around 4:36 p.m.
New Zealand is located in a seismically active zone known as the Ring of Fire and regularly suffers from powerful earthquakes. On 22 February 2011, the 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit New Zealand's city of Christchurch, leaving 185 people dead and more than 1,500 injured.