Tsunami!
Luckily not, as it turned out! I woke up early the other day, and checked my email before heading off to work, and there’s a message from Kim Bottles on Bainbridge forwarding a CNN News Alert at about 5:00 AM our time: “– Tsunami warnings issued for Fiji and New Zealand after earthquake measuring a magnitude of about 8.0 shakes southern Pacific Ocean.” It was due to hit the east coast at Gisborne first, at around 6:21 AM our time. Luckily, the alert was cancelled at around 5:30 AM once they had additional information.
Many people here heard about the alert when friends and family abroad heard the news, and phoned New Zealand in the early morning hours. Many people in Gisborne fled for the hills. The scandal here is that the Ministry of Civil Defence failed to notify people in Gisborne about the alert! It is true that they were monitoring the situation, but from the time the alert was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center after the earthquake hit near Tonga at 3:27 AM our time until the alert was cancelled at 5:36 AM our time, there was a two hour period where they should probably have been reacting as if a tsunami was on the way. If it was due to hit at 6:21 AM, there would’ve been only about 40 minutes to alert the people of Gisborne to get to safety…
Apparently here in Auckland it probably wouldn’t have been too bad, because the Hauraki Gulf and Waitemata Harbour are relatively shallow, such that any large wave would break way out around Great Barrier Island. I have heard that they have sirens to alert the public here, and besides, we live near the top of a hill.
So, for now we can relax about tsunamis, and get back to worrying about the fact that Auckland is built on an active volcanic field…!