NZ's Early Morning Tsunami Alerts
The alert warns people to stay away from the coasts, which may experience "strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges" until at least midday today.
A glitch also resulted in some people receiving the alert multiple times, or not at all.
Dr Sally Potter, social scientist and warnings consultant, Director of Canary Innovation Ltd., comments:
"Many people around New Zealand received two Emergency Mobile Alerts over the past 24 hours. While these can be disruptive if you're tucked up safely at home, they may well have saved lives too. Perhaps they made people rethink going out early this morning to fish or surf, or for a walk on the beach. It's important for emergency managers to ensure they are doing everything they can to inform people about life-threatening risks such as tsunami.
"Following the 2022 eruption of the Hunga volcano in Tonga, tsunami surges reached our shores. Similar to today's event, there was a beach and marine threat, and the surges caused damage to boats in harbours, particularly in Northland. A campsite was also flooded in Canterbury. So, we need to make sure we take all alerts such as this seriously, particularly due to the uncertainties involved in the locations affected, timing and how big the event is going to be."
No conflicts of interest.
Dr Lauren Vinnell, Senior Lecturer of Emergency Management, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, comments:
"The Emergency Mobile Alert system is a valuable resource for communicating information about imminent hazards to the public. It's a tough balance between not alerting too much that people become tired of them and pay less attention in future, but not alerting too little so that people feel they haven't been adequately warned. Tsunami do pose a real risk to life, so the use of the system today and yesterday seems appropriate. One way to avoid complacency when people do receive alerts but don't experience danger personally is to encourage them to view these alerts as practice, so that they will be better prepared to respond next time.
"It is also vital to remember that while we have this alerting system, it won't always be possible to get warnings to people in time. It's important that efforts to teach natural warning signs, like a long or strong earthquake for tsunami, continue. This will mean that people are better equipped to respond to alerts if they do get them, but also will be more prepared to act to keep themselves safe in the instances where official warnings are not possible."
No conflicts of interest.
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