As dawn broke there was scant information from many rural villages in the South Island, which were isolated by landslips and fractured telephone communications as strong aftershocks continued for several hours.
Prime Minister John Key confirmed two people had died and said "we cannot rule out" that number will rise, nearly seven hours after the main quake.
Police were trying to reach the scene of one fatality at a remote property 150 kilometres north of Christchurch while another person died in a historic homestead which collapsed at the nearby fishing village of Kaikoura.
The earthquake struck at 12:02am Monday (1102 GMT Sunday) and was 23 kilometres deep, the US Geological Survey said, putting the epicentre near the alpine tourist village of Hanmer and the rural township of Cheviot in North Canterbury, South Island.
It was one of the most powerful shakes to rock earthquake-prone New Zealand and ignited painful memories for residents in Christchurch which was devastated five years ago by a 6.3 tremor which killed 185 people.
"It was massive and really long," Tamsin Edensor, a mother of two in Christchurch, told describing the powerful quake as the biggest since the 2011 tremor which was one of New Zealand`s deadliest disasters.
In September, a strong 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the east coast of New Zealand, generating a small tsunami, but no significant damage or injuries were reported.
New Zealand is on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, which form part of the so-called "Ring of Fire", and experiences up to 15,000 tremors a year.
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