Tsunami Warning
September 30th, 2009 at 9:08 am by David FarrarCivil Defence has issues a rare tsunami warning. Stuff reports details:
A tsunami is radiating across the South Pacific following a massive 8.3 magnitude earthquake near Samoa and will hit New Zealand later today. …
The Hawaii center’s updated timings for the arrival of a tsunami in New Zealand are:
East Cape at 9.44am
Gisborne 10am
North Cape 10.12 am
Napier 10.40 am
Wellington 10.50 am
Auckland (east coast) 11.12 am
Auckland (west) 11.39 am
Lyttelton 11.55am
New Plymouth 12.17pm
Nelson 12.23 pm
Dunedin 12.31 pm
The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management said there was a tsunami risk to New Zealand from the earthquake.
The ministry has issued a tsunami warning for New Zealand coasts.
Ministry director John Hamilton said that the ministry had alerted the country’s regional Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) groups, police, fire service, Ministry of Health, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and other government agencies.
The ministry has activated the National Crisis Management Centre and was co-ordinating central government response.
The CDEM sector was activating its emergency plans.
Regional CDEM groups were working urgently with local authorities, local emergency services and local media to warn and if necessary evacuate coastal areas at risk.
Detailed evacuation advice would come from local authorities and local emergency services.
If told to evacuate people should, where possible, take a radio and cell phone with them, along with essential items such as glasses, hearing aid and medicines.
Note that so far there is no advice to evacuate.
Related posts:
- Tumeke on Tsunami Twitters
- The Chile tsunami
- Editorials 2 March 2010
- Sea Shepherd’s Watson says tsunami was divine punishment
September 30th, 2009 at 9:35 am
>>Note that so far there is no advice to evacuate.<< Good that means we can all go down to the beach to see it … like the school techer who took her class some years back. I guess 'Dunedin' means St Kilda Beach etc rather than within the harbour.
Vote:Good of you to spread the warning David becuase I don't have my radio or TV on.
September 30th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Great Barrier Island will be one of the first to get it.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Radio NZ says a 1 meter wave.
I suspect this is predicted height at landing rather than oceanic size; of course, oceanic size magnifies on arrival as the sea floor gets higher. If it’s one meter on arrival, then I don’t need to run back home to the beach to get the cat. Excellent.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I detect the politics of fear behind this one. A National government in power and suddenly we have the populace fearful of going to the beach?
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I must admit to finding all this Tsunami business rather exciting.
I have quite a curiousity as to the damage it may cause in New Zealand (although ‘probably none’ springs to mind) as an opportunity to see how prepared our Civil Defence chappies are major disaster-wise.
I note it is 10:05am …is Gisborne still there?
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I trust that someone has alerted the Deputy Prime Minister that there is a tsunami headed his way.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:10 am
And the chicken littles at chch hospital are heading home to save their precious belongings. Shame if there was a REAL emergency that required health services.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Scrubone – where is the politics of fear in this case? At least 5 dead in Samoa, a pacific neighbour where the relatives of many New Zealanders currently reside, tsunami warnings from GNS and the Tsunami centre in Hawai, and warnings to notify New Zealanders of the threat. Politics of fear or fear of conspiracy scrubone?!
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Does anyone know how the freakin’ tsunami is supposed to hit New Plymouth of all places?! It’s on the west coast!
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I txt’ed my daughter who is in Tauranga for a couple of weeks, telling her to stay away from the shore. Her reply: “Tauranga is _all_ shore!”
Then she txt’ed me a few minutes ago to tell me that they had a strangely low tide. I said “Run for the hills!” She told me not to worry – her office is on the second floor!
And some of my colleagues are going to go up into the hills to watch and possibly photograph the idiots who will go to the beach to watch!
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:15 am
And Stephen – ever built a sand castle and watched the waves sweep around and hit behind it? The tides and the waves sweep around the islands and yes, even New Plymouth can be hit.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:19 am
David – we stayed in Tauranga two weeks ago about three metres from the water’s edge. I’m glad we’re not there today!
[DPF: Sounds like the wave is pretty modest so would have been fine anyway]
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:33 am
NOt1tocommentoften – exactly, that’s what we’re *told*. It’s a vast conspiracy to get conservatives off the beach.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 10:35 am
What the fuck is up wth TVNZ?
Vote:Civil defense warnings everywhere, Napier evacuated and they keep playing the world’s worst tv program ‘Good morning’
September 30th, 2009 at 10:57 am
People are very worried around here about a high school party that went to Samoa last week. A group of students from the Opunake high school are currently in Samoa playing sports and visiting various schools and attending cultural activities. No news as yet about the students in the media. One of my neighbours has a daughter in the group, so will try to catch up with them.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 11:12 am
stephen (2946) Vote: 0 0 Says:
September 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Does anyone know how the freakin’ tsunami is supposed to hit New Plymouth of all places?! It’s on the west coast!
Much of the damage in Sri Lanka when the big Tsunami came at them from the East was on the West coast.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 11:16 am
The alert has been downgraded.
Just when I thought a solution to the problem of welfare spending had been found… (East Cape, Gisborne, Northland all being in the firing line of the Tsunami)…seems little more than a teaspoonful of sea water has resulted.
*sigh*
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 11:17 am
When the wave hit Ko Phi Phi in Thailand in 2004 it came from 2 directions. People started fleeing one way across the island only to be met by another wave coming the other way. Terrifying.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Fullers took its big boats out of Opua into deep water in the Bay of Islands but I have just watched them all return past Russell. We’ve seen no sign of any wave and the low tide rocks are dry above the water line.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Thanks chaps – stuff has a good graphic demonstrating how it happened/will happen re: my question there:
Vote:http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2916340/New-Zealand-authorities-prepare-for-tsunami
September 30th, 2009 at 11:38 am
What a beat up.
Media going nuts. Usual story. Suspect civil defence is already preparing a report which concludes more funding is required.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
The energy of the wave must be dissipated as it radiates at least in proportion to its circular length = 2 x Pi x r.
Given that NZ is a factor of 10 further away from the epicentre than Samoa where it was apparently about 3 metres high why on earth is anyone surprised it is no more than 300 mm high when it reaches NZ?
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
village idiot aka greenfly (permanently banned) said “I trust that someone has alerted the Deputy Prime Minister that there is a tsunami headed his way.”
What a tosser you are greenfly – 40 dead in Samoa; quite possibly some New Zealanders, and you try to make a petty political point. It’s little wonder that the Greens are held in such contempt.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Well said IV2, I note that the other low life (MNIJ) could not help himself either.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Lol; so Napier was evacuated?? Well I never.
Hopefully now the self-indulgent panic is over (and I do wonder how we will cope in a real emergency) we can turn thoughts and actions to Samoa
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
@ ben – what’s worse – a false alarm, or an avoidable catastrophe? I’d far rather that Civil Defence take a conservative and cautionary approach.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
What a tosser you are Inventory2 – 40 dead in Samoa; quite possibly some New Zealanders, and you try to make a petty personal attack on a commenter.
U2BB.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
On a lighter note….
Can you imagine the near orgasmic state of the civil defence leaders as their pagers or cell phones went off this morning.
All over the east coast of NZ bearded men in walk shorts and long socks would have leapt to attention full of self importance, their partners would have asked them if they had time for breakfast, “no, we have an emergency” would have been the well practised reply.
Thermos’s would have been hurriedly filled, cut sandwiches would have been cobbled together and high visibility vests and hard hats donned as they walked briskly (no sense in placing ones self in danger by running) to their Lada’s.
The drive to civil defence headquarters would have been made at just over the speed limit (102km per hour), headlights would have been blazing, the radio’s would be tuned to national radio looking for updates, and thoughts of “I live for this” would fill their heads, as they arrived at headquarters they would again walk briskly up the stairs before grabbing hold of their favourite clipboard.
One can almost see the disappointment on their faces when the news came in that the approaching tidal wave was only 1 meter in height.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Bruv, you’d be useless as a Civil Defence leader.
Never leave your clipboard at work…
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
One News reporting live from “the bunker”. (What is this? Hitler’s last stand?)
Complete with Civil Defence flag in the background (my guess is that the reporter asked them to go and fetch one to put in shot).
And wait for the “Kiwi connection” where our cultural cringe will go into overdrive and the MSM will find the uncle of somebody who visited Samoa a few years ago. The uncle will live in Inglewood. (They always do, have you noticed?)
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Colonel.
$10 bet (proceeds to your favourite charity) that at least one person in the background has a beard.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
No thanks, bruv: I have long noted the bearded nature of these types and, in particular, seismologists and vulcanologists.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Yes, because Kiwiblog is invariably the place I come when I need reassurance that not everything can be turned into petty political point scoring, or that a major incident can’t be turned into a catalyst for unique displays of hatred.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“And wait for the “Kiwi connection” where our cultural cringe will go into overdrive and the MSM will find ….”
How do they find all the “ordinary person” commenters on TV news? Do they have a database of people categorised under common news topics that they can call on when they want ordinary accounts of the items? Or do they just roam around with cameras like at sports events until they find volunteer 10 second famers?
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Also Colonels. But they have tastier chicken.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Pete George, I always assume the people approach the TV news in the first place and then they build a story around it. (Natural disasters excepted!)
Sometimes the item is so un-newsworthy that I suspect the protagonist is the boyfriend or girlfriend of a news staffer.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
The other thing that puzzled me was the bizarre time sequence forecast for the wave arrivals.
The gauges show that it did in fact reach North Cape ahead of East Cape:
Vote:http://www.geonet.org.nz/tsunami/gauges/index.html
September 30th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I withdraw my earlier comment. Obviously more serious than I thought.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
The phrase: “Couldn’t forecast a fuck in a brothel” suggests itself……..
Vote:And didn’t Paul Henry look like he wanted to deck the CD spokesman?.
September 30th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Len Brown is a hero. He has very generously offered other people’s money to help out. Thanks Len.
Incidentally, he’s running for mayor isn’t he?
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Of course our focus here must be on helping Samoa in any way we can. At some stage soon though we should have a hard think about how ready we are for a tsunami here in NZ. We will get hit by one at some stage and I doubt we are very well prepared. I live in Wellington and it would be useful to know some likely scenarios, including how high the waves could be where to go if in the central city, etc.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
We are indeed helping Samoa Philonz – in fact the Hon Chris Carter, MP for Te Atatu and Shadow Minister of Lurks and Perks is winging his way to Samoa as I type these words.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Absolutely Philonz, one got the overwhelming feeling that the evacuation command would be given as the wave hit, then it would be everyone for him/herself.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Simple distance isn’t the only factor. The depth of the water has a large impact on the speed of the wave. There is a deep ridge that passes closest to NZ at the East Cape and that might have affected predictions. Looking forward to some decent data on what really happened over the next few days.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Philonz
“I live in Wellington and it would be useful to know some likely scenarios, including how high the waves could be where to go if in the central city, etc.”
Are you serious???
You live in Wellington, you are surrounded by bloody big hills, some are even misnamed “Mt”, in the event of a tidal wave warning I would suggest you get your arse to the top of one of these hills as fast as you can.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Tweet from NZStuffAlerts:
#samoa #tsunami Reliable but unconfirmed report Kiwi killed in tsunami – Deputy PM
Sounds like Bill English’s troubles are over.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
The tide gauge link I gave makes it pretty clear what happened here.
But how come there is a two hour delay on the Raoul Island data? I presume that means it’s coming via some satellite route through an international agency but it defeats the purpose of having it out there between NZ and the Pacific if it has such a long reporting delay back to NZ.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I live in Wellington and am far more concerned about earthquakes happening here than a tsunami started by an earthquake happening somewhere else.
Especially to the north.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
No doubt many of the posters complaining about Civil Defence and the ‘over-reaction’, would be the first to complain about Civil Defence and the ‘under-reaction’, had things turned out differently.
Alan Wilkinson wrote:
True, but it’s more complicated than that. The waves travel more efficiently in deeper water and the impact when it hits land would be dependent on the profile of the seabed, harbour shape. Not to mention the shape, orientation etc of the earthquake (e.g if the plates shifted vertically). The 2004 tsunami went right across the Indian Ocean and did plenty of damage in Sri Lanka, but much less damage in places closer to the epicentre.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
It certainly is. Waves that are channeled up a waterway or follow a deep ocean rift can go a lot further without loss of power. They reflect off land masses.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
malcolm, it doesn’t matter how efficiently they travel – so long as they are being extended around a larger circular perimeter their energy is being directly attenuated by the increasing length of that perimeter. There will be further losses due to energy absorption en route due to various causes that may be variable but these losses will be on top of the direct attenuation by distance.
Yes, the height onshore will be affected by the local topography but the wave height at the worst affected close coastlines is surely a worst-case estimate to use as a rule-of-thumb for predicting via attenuation what would happen here.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Sure we have hills BB but I want to have some idea of which direction to run and how much warning I’m likely to have. Some areas of the region are flat (the Hutt) and it would be good to know how far up the valley the waves could go.
I’d rather we have over-reaction on behalf of Civil Defence but would be interested to know if they had a very clear tsunami plan or if anyone has done studies into likely effects of a tsunami on NZ.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Alan Wilkinson wrote:
Yes it may well be that the worst-affected close shore is the worst case, but not necessarily. Also true about the energy decreasing in proportion to the distance travelled (= proportional to wave front length), but there are many other factors in play. Just one example, reflected waves adding together or cancelling each other out. The 2004 tsunami was a good example. Much more devastating in Sri Lanka yet far less so in places closer to the epicentre. This was also a function of the orientation of the plate shift etc.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Philonz
I am a born and bred Wellingtonian, even in the Hutt Valley (a place I always tried to spend as little time as possible in) you are not more than a couple of miles from a bloody big hill.
I would have thought that a tidal wave plan for Wellingtonians would be one of the cheapest and easiest to organise, look for the nearest hill and get to the top of it.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
big bruv, if there’s one place that natural selection should be allowed to act unhindered, it’s Wellington.
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Samoa is hilly as well BB. It was formed volcanically and is far from flat. It may be that they had a similar Tsunami plan to yours of looking to the nearest hill and getting up it. Have we ever had a test of warning sirens in Wellington?
Vote:September 30th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I reckon all us Wellingtonians should just head for Big Bruv’s place.
Vote:Get his missus to whip up some scones while we survey the damage from his deck.
Or we could all just head to Lyall Bay for a spot of surfing – like some mates of mine did about thirty years ago when we had a similar tsunami warning. ‘Surf’s up!’
September 30th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Philonz; From Wgtn. you head due east, just while the tides receded mind. Don’t stop at Somes for a picnic not enough time but hurry along to Eastbourne and thence to Wainui Rd where you can run up the hill to the top to watch. Takes about 20 minutes, used to do the run during school lunch times in the winter. Warmer than sitting in the cold bastard of a school room.)
Vote:View from the top not bad, on a good day,which I’ll agree Wgtn doesn’t have many of.
If that doesn’t suit you can always take the cable car up the hill. Probably easier.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:50 am
Paul Henry really had a go at the Civil Defense spokesman, here.
That spokesman was Colin Feslier, who used to work for DIA before this debacle.
Poor Colin.
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 1:35 am
Condolences Samoa, America Samoa and Tonga.
Mark Sainsbury’s best effort to date on Close-up:
“But you are alive Tony?”
When doing a live telephone interview with Tony.
Cutting edge stuff that.
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 1:37 am
Alan Wilkinson:
Vote:I believe the central point that malcom is making is that the source of the tsunami does not behave as a point source. As he says, often a large length of plate is lifted at the same time underwater. This tends to generate a wave that does not spread out in an even circle but is more focused in a certain direction. In such cases, one naturally cannot assume either a uniform distribution of energy or a circular wavefront.
October 1st, 2009 at 1:52 am
I would have thought we had accurate wave buoys by now that can actually record the abnormal wave height then pass that on to computers in NZ well before any tsunami hit? No?
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 8:58 am
Paradigm, yes, I realise that issue though I don’t think malcolm was actually making it. He seemed more focused on the effect of local shore topography. However, the linear source effect will dissipate with distance too. Unless it is a very extensive linear movement by the time the wave is thousands of kilometres away it will effectively be behaving as though from a point source.
The point I am making is that it doesn’t seem to me that our civil defence systems are making sufficient use of known science and are thereby causing a lot of people to run around like headless chooks instead of doing useful things.
Also, why was Raoul Island data suffering a two hour delay yesterday? It has recovered now, but surely as an early warning system it is useless if not current.
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Alan have a look at this image of a simlulation of the 15 November 2006 Kuril Tsunami. It is apparent that even in the distance from the side of asia almost to Hawaii there is considerable anisotropy in amplitude in one direction. After that it appears malcom’s other point – that undersea topography is important – becomes the determining factor as the wave appears funneled in certain directions – observe how it reaches the North American Coast (and indeed South America) through a relatively tight path, while apparently dodging Hawaii.
http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/Jpg/kuril06-dart.jpg
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Yep, there is anisotrophy but the major effect is simply dispersion. In any case, the ocean floor doesn’t change much. Isn’t it time we had reasonable models to predict what it will do and when and where it will do it?
As far as I can say, what few predictions civil defence had were actually quite wrong.
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Given the your acceptance of the degree of anisotropy, your criticism that they did not just take the limited observations from somewhere close and use 2*pi*r seems a bit naive.
As to your criticism that the CD prediction was wrong, one cannot guess the size of the wave coming in a particular direction soley from the magnitude of the earthquake. Ultimately you have to wait until you have measurements from bouys or shore observations in several directions before you can reliably predict where it is going with what strength. So either you advocate a lot more bouys being set up, or the CD have to play it safe and consider the worst case scenario till enough data is recieved to fit a model with. What’s the cost to install and maintain that many bouys in the ocean vs disrupting a some of the populus for a few hours once every one or more years? Cost/benefit ratio is probably not that good.
Vote:October 1st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
paradigm, they’ve already got buoys in the ocean. The Raoul Island sensors gave NZ a couple of hours notice. Use it properly. The anisotrophy is negligible to a first approximation. We know what the sea bed looks like. We have computers. We know where the fault lines are. Run some model scenarios and we’ll have a second approximation that does include anisotrophy.
It’s a pitiful exhibition of scientific incompetence IMHO. If the Government is too clueless to do it, tender it out to private enterprise and let them handle it properly.
Vote:October 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 am
So we get two closely spaced points of data from raoul island, virtually no other points of data in our general direction until the tsunami hits the north or east cape, and are only able to (poorly) guess at the geometry of the underwater displacement that caused the tsunami. In short we have more guesses than data.
Then I take it we put this very limited data plus alot of assumptions through a finite element analysis (which would probably take a decent chunk of time even on a supercomputer, assuming you could free one up on a moment’s notice) repeat quite a few times for different assumptions due to our lack of data, and end up with something useful in the <2 hours before the tsunami hits? Unlikely.
Vote: