Advice was received from the Seis-mological Observatory in the afternoon of Thursday, October 14, 1982 that the earthquake swarm felt in Wanganui over
the previous few days was the strongest activity in the area for many years and that it would be worthwhile to have strong-motion instrumentation in the area. The only PEL instrument in Wanganui at that time was a scratch-plate in the basement
of the Post Office, with the nearest film-recording MO2 accelerographs 25 kilometres from Wanganui in the four-instrument array at Atene on the Wanganui River. There were, however, two six-component Solid State Equipment (SSE)
Ltd digital accelerographs located in an office building in Wanganui. No earthquakes had been recorded on a SEE accelerograph previously. It was therefore decided to install a MO2 in Wanganui and another at some suitable site to be determined after discussion with the Seismological Observatory team monitoring the swarm.