More cash needed for gap-free warning system

The warning system that could prevent a tsunami disaster in New Zealand has limited coverage because of a lack of money.

Its director, Dr Hugh Cowan, said GeoNet had been running on two-thirds of recommended long-term funding.

The nationwide network of seismographs and stations monitoring land movements in and around New Zealand is part of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS). It is three years into a 10-year upgrade. Before that began, Dr Cowan said, the system was woefully inadequate.

Now work was proceeding, but not to funding levels recommended by an international board of experts.

"We can't realise the full potential of GeoNet without more funding or more time. But there is a solid core of capability," Dr Cowan told the Herald last night.

The institute had had to prioritise in the first three years of the project. "With any shortfall in funding, it will take longer to develop capability."

Dr Cowan said the threat of tsunamis from close to our shores came from areas of major faultline activity - the Southern Ocean, north of Bay of Plenty, off the East Coast of the North Island and off the Kaikoura coast. GeoNet network coverage could be improved in certain areas - the West Coast of the South Island, the East Coast of the North Island down to northern Wairarapa, and the volcanic regions in Taranaki, Auckland City, Taupo and Bay of Plenty.

Dr Cowan praised the work of the previous three years, but said there was scope for "considerable enhancement along the lines of the original proposal".

He said other factors relevant to preventing a tsunami disaster were response times, civil defence squads and the common sense of the public.

For tremors outside the range of GeoNet's resources, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii monitors activity and alerts civil defence officers.