The sky over Wellington was lit up in green and blue (Picture: Instagram)

Incredible footage filmed during the New Zealand earthquake shows the night sky lighting up with bright colours.

Quick-thinking New Zealanders managed to film the scene in Wellington while the powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck near Christchurch.

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Their clips show flashes of green, white and blue in the sky over a span of a few seconds.

Zachary Bell said he filmed a video at ‘the peak of the shaking’, noting that ‘the sky began to light up with colours’ over the sea.


Another video posted on Instagram shows clear, bright flashes of light during the earthquake that killed two people and led to tsunamis.

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Similar accounts of lights in the sky emerged following the previous Christchurch earthquake in 2011, ABC News reported.



In fact, the phenomenon has been spotted during earthquakes for thousands of years – but scientists haven’t come to a consensus about why it happens.

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In a paper published in science journal Seismological Research Letters, researchers stated that lights have been spotted weeks before an earthquake.

This could be due to stress building in the fault lines prior to the disaster.

However, it is unclear if the lights are a genuine or natural phenomenon.

There were also white flashes in the sky (Picture: Instagram)