Tsunami alert moved forward

Tsunami warning alarms will be installed along the Western Bay of Plenty coastline from Waihi Beach to Pukehina in six to 12 months.

The network of up to 10 alarms is believed to be the first co-ordinated tsunami warning system by a New Zealand territorial local authority.

It would alert officials to evacuate 60,000 to 70,000 people in the most likely event of a 5-metre wave height.

A tsunami of that size would cut all state highways and roads on the coastal strip from Waihi Beach through to Mt Maunganui, Papamoa, Maketu and Pukehina.

Large areas between Mt Maunganui and Pukehina could end up under water and Matakana Island in Tauranga Harbour could also be inundated.

The Western Bay of Plenty District Council and Tauranga City Council had long acknowledged the sub-region's vulnerability to earthquakes, volcanoes and sub-marine landslides, emergency manager Barry Low said yesterday.

"In the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami tragedy and the international concern the event raised, we want to reassure residents that tsunami warning and response plans are well under way here."

The alarms were part of a plan geared to the assumption of at least four hours' warning of a tsunami generated some distance offshore.

Staff had been working on the project for almost three years and the South-east Asia disaster was the catalyst for bringing funding forward.

Mr Low said all fire stations along the Western Bay of Plenty coast and at sites close to coastal homes would have alarms with a distinctive early warning siren.

They would be triggered simultaneously when the Tauranga and Western Bay Emergency Management Office received official word from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii.

Radio and television announcements, along with signs advising people of safe escape routes, would accompany alarm warnings, said Mr Low.

Thanks to the co-operation of the Fire Service, the plan would be working next year.

"It is not our job to be doom and gloom merchants," he said.

It was a proactive move aimed at reassuring people who had been nervous since the Boxing Day disaster in Asia that claimed thousands of lives.