Civil Defence response to tsunami warning questioned

Questions have been raised about Civil Defence's reponse to the tsunami warning issued this morning.

Newstalk ZB reported that several local district councils rang the station asking what they should be doing after the 3.30am quake off Tonga, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale.

A tsunami warning was issued for New Zealand, Fiji and several other countries, but three hours after the quake there had still been no official word from Civil Defence.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later lifted the tsunami warning.

It is claimed the emergency bunker under the Beehive was activated by officials after calls from the station.

Gisborne's Ocean Beach Motor Lodge manager Philip Payne said he was not aware of the possible drama until 6.30am, when it was all over.

But the lack of contact from Civil Defence was a concern as it would have been a major exercise to evacuate his 60 guests, plus his own family.

"We had no awareness whatsoever," Mr Payne said. "I'm concerned. We certainly would have needed to be contacted by Civil Defence and told of where we could have evacuated our guests if necessary.

"It is quite low and very coastal and, depending on the severity of the waves, there's probably nowhere to go except miles inland."

However, A spokesman for the National Crisis Management Centre, Allen Walley, said no New Zealand national civil defence warning was issued.

"The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management was in contact with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center throughout the process and was alerted to a possible tsunami," he said.

"Overseas media reports had incorrectly suggested a threat and the need for evacuations."

The ministry activated the Crisis Management Centre, which was still "monitoring developments".

There were no reports of damage in Fiji, Niue, the Solomons, Tokelau nor Rarotonga.

"Whilst electricity is out in Tonga, there are no reports of major damage at this time."

- NEWSTALK ZB, NZPA

Your experiences:

I had a call from Germany from my brother waking me up to tell me there has been a warning issued to NZ regarding Tsunami!
- Soumya

I'm currently living in the US. My neighbour got the tsunami warning for Fiji and NZ sent to her cell-phone by Yahoo messaging. I rang my dad in Whitianga to let him know at 5.00am NZ time. He hadn't heard anything. If you would like the same prompt response to a "tsunami warning", please foward your numbers over and i'll ring you too next time!
- Mike Clow

I heard about it around 6 am your time in London from a friend looking at news from around the world on the internet - first notification was from an American site which reported from Hawaii! Rang my parents who live in Auckland and they had heard nothing until they turned the news on around 6.30am NZ time. Think maybe the Ministry of Civil Defence need to pull their socks up a bit.
- P Webb

Living here in Canada, my Canadian wife heard the alert on a radio station from NZ that she listens to on the web. She phoned me to tell me at 5.19am NZ time. Surprising that I can find out about it here in Canada before Civil Defence does anything back home.
- Jared Morrison

We live in Gisborne and were woken at 6am by our neighbour who had had a phone call from a work colleague who had been notified of the tsunami warning by a call from the US. How come the sirens and so forth had not notfied us? How are we supposed to know a tsunami is possibly going to arrive - we don't listen to the radio in the middle of the night when we're sleeping. Surely there should be some method of waking/alerting us all?
- Anthony

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