A national building industry conference has been told that seismic fears are now dominating the sector.

Tsunami warning sirens that sounded across Auckland in a test-run at the weekend are not favoured by our national emergency agency.

Every time Steve Morris takes his two young daughters to the local beach, signs of tsunami danger surround him.

One of the finalists for the upcoming 2013 New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards, Aranz Geo, credits the Christchurch earthquakes.

As one of the world's most tsunami-threatened countries, New Zealand faces the triple menace of distant-source tsunami, regional tsunami and local-source tsunami.

A relatively large earthquake struck off the coast of the North Island's East Coast overnight.

Insurance giant Tower must pay out a Christchurch couple for a like-for-like replacement on another site, after their home was damaged in the earthquakes.

New Zealand is moving by 4cm a year, new satellite surveys have revealed, as tectonic forces deform the land surface by stretching, slimming and sliding it southward.

Large parts of the country's building stock will be off-limits for disabled people under a proposal to trim the cost of upgrading thousands of earthquake-prone buildings, advocacy groups have warned.

The University of Canterbury's new high-tech security system is designed to speed up response times to critical incidents like natural disasters.

Police will decide soon on whether a formal investigation is warranted into the collapse of the Canterbury Television building, which killed 115 people.

Live music in hastily-built venues has helped shaken Cantabrians beat the post-quake blues, a university researcher says.

Panicked Aucklanders have been snapping up emergency kits in the wake of last Sunday's earthquakes.

How much would your house cost to build? If you don't know and don't want to rely on your CV or an insurer's online calculator, you may be facing a $500 bill from a valuer when a major change to the way insurance policies work kicks in.

Aucklanders have been reassured that a big earthquake is highly unlikely, although a geologist says the rare pair that struck yesterday might be a sign of more to come.

A "moderate" 3.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Auckland today was the biggest in the city since February 2007.

A closely-watched insurance battle is expected to wrap up at the High Court in Christchurch today.

More than 6400 people in the remote Santa Cruz Islands in Temotu Province, 500km east of Honiara in the Solomon Islands, are coming to terms with devastation and loss wrought by the double disaster of an earthquake and tsunami last month.

Damaged chimneys and homeless people are likely to lead to more abandoned red zone properties going up in flames this winter, firefighters fear.