ShakeOut 2024: Tairāwhiti second-highest region signed up for earthquake drill and tsunami hīkoi

By Murray Robertson

Gisborne Herald·

25 Sep, 2024 05:00 PM2 mins to read

ShakeOut 2024 has attracted nearly half a million registrations nationally with a month to go, and Gisborne is second on the regional leaderboard for percentage of population, just 1% behind West Coast.

With a month to go, nearly half a million people have already signed up for New Zealand ShakeOut 2024 – 7266 of them in Tairāwhiti.

The national earthquake drill and tsunami hīkoi staged by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will be held on October 24 at 9.30am.

NEMA director John Price said nearly 490,000 people had signed up for the nationwide self-run drill in which people “drop, cover and hold” for 60 seconds and practice their evacuation if they are in a tsunami evacuation zone.

As of Thursday morning, Tairawhiti was in second place on the ShakeOut regional scoreboard with 14% of the population having signed up – 7319 people as part of 29 businesses, 39 schools and 87 households.

West Coast led on 15% of the population and Bay of Plenty was third on 10%.

“We have yet to start the enrolment campaign and yet we still maintain a solid second place,” a Gisborne District Council spokeswoman said. “We’ll be hunting down that top spot again.”

Price said it was fantastic to see almost half a million people already signed up and he encouraged schools, businesses, community groups and whānau to sign up if they had not done so already.

“All of New Zealand is at risk of earthquakes and tsunamis at any time. ShakeOut gives us the chance to practice, exercise and test the correct actions to take during an earthquake and tsunami.”