Asia Bizz: The massive 6.3 magnitude New Zealand earthquake has led to the collapse of buildings and deaths, and has also led to the sharp drop of the NZ dollar against other Asian currencies – including the Japanese Yen. The earthquake struck the southern city of Christchurch on Tuesday afternoon, barely 5 months after the largest measured quake hit the country.
Photo Credit: Livenz
The markets in NZ show that New Zealand’s NZX 50 index is at the moment trading at 3,350.85 – which is down 31.08 points compared to its previous close. Besides this, the New Zealand $ has suffered a sharp fall of 1.3 percent to 62.68 yen early afternoon in Sydney and also dropped to 75.54 U.S. cents, as compared to Monday’s 76.38 cents in New York, USA.
The reason for the drop of the NZ dollar is the mixed concerns in investors not only with regards to the destructive Christchurch earthquake, but also due to the growing tensions in Middle East countries like Bahrain and more recently Libya.
The unrest has also affected neighboring Australia, and saw the Australian $ falling 0.5 percent to 83.48 yen.
