A few Ōpōtiki residents have refused to leave their homes despite a Civil Defence order to evacuate because of the tsunami danger in their area, district councillor Louis Rāpihana says.
Rāpihana told Nine to Noon he went along low-lying coastal areas near the eastern Bay of Plenty town as soon as he received the alert and told people they needed to leave.
Some have decided to stay and he said he could not force them to leave.
"The waves are coming rippling up to the shore and it's actually going out quite a bit and then coming back in."
Waves were crashing up the beach and it would be impossible for anyone to stand up in the sea at present.
Ōpōtiki Mayor Lynn Riesterer said the town has emptied out and almost everybody is on higher ground.
She said she was awaiting more information from Civil Defence on what should happen next.
It was important that people stayed put until they got the all-clear.
The tsunami warning has come on an eventful day that started at 2.27am when a 7.1 earthquake struck the East Coast. People in the most affected areas earlier today shared their experiences with RNZ.
'It was crazy'
At Te Araroa on the coast nearest the quake epicentre, the whole settlement evacuated to Maunga Whetūmatarau, known locally as Hospital Hill.
"Was it ever [scary], it was crazy," said local woman Aomihi Cook, who was among them.
"The quake was rocking. It was shaking like anything. It was a long one."
"I mean, we're fairly new to the area. We've only been here three years, but it was pretty substantial.
"And everybody's just tapped into evacuating to higher ground. All the locals are used to when they get a shake, and a couple of our employees rang us and said, 'You know, you'd better move on'.
"We've got a really good group of people working for us, looking after the townies eh."
Metcalfe aimed to get back to his shop to check for stock damage.
Thoughts of the Big One
Some aisles had broken goods in them at Chris Beard's Four Square store at Tokomaru Bay.
Beard is in the volunteer fire brigade, and has two children, 2 and 5 months.
Campers from the motor camp had gone up the hill - but not everyone was there who should have been.
"Once we got to safe ground, we kind of got together with the guys ... and there were some guys in our crew that were really good going through their phones and accounting for the people that we knew didn't have the technology to get the alarms through on their phones, and quickly came up with a game plan," Beard told RNZ.
"Actually, a ute of the guys from the fire service came back down and picked up a few of the elderly and brought them back up, which was fantastic."
He and other volunteer fire crew got a special alert on their phones, but the station's siren was not triggered, when Beard thought it should be.
"So that'll be something we have to look at", along with other aspects of a lack of preparation.
"Until the phone started ringing and I had the mayor - she lives down the road from me - turn up," said Solomon, the islands' emergency controller.
"So we were there in our PJs. We had no power. And we were just waiting for the power to come back on.
"From all around the island, there was phones ringing, coming in, saying they'd all felt the shakes. And it was really strong, one of the strongest they've felt."
The Chathams will only get its first cellphone service later this year, so people turned to her for a steer.
"We've got one family that self-evacuated. I said to them that it was a good idea that they did that, first up, because they are right on the beach."
Solomon issued a marine warning for the first quake, as the tsunami alert did not apply.
"No sooner did that happen, as we got another one up in the Kermadecs.
"So I re-issued another marine warning just to make sure everybody understood, just stay away from the beaches."
The sea was "sloppy and surgy" due to the quakes, and that would last for a couple of days, Solomon said.
She was looking forward to cellphone service beginning, as that would mean faster, widespread warnings - and probably fewer phonecalls for her next time.