Formal apology following Civil Defence emergency text 'technical failure'

Forty-two people notified Civil Defence about not getting a text message following the tsunami warning on September 2, prompting an apology from the organisation's service provider.

In response to the technical failure, a Civil Defence test alert will be issued via text messaging this Thursday at 10am.

During the tsunami threat, forty-two notifications were received from people who had registered and did not receive a text alert from Bay of Plenty Civil Defence.

An investigation identified the system upgrade recently undertaken by the organisation's service provider had not captured all registered numbers as expected.

Bay of Plenty Civil Defence group controller Clinton Naude said some messages were not received due to a technical failure by the service provider and a formal apology had been received from the company responsible.

"Our service provider has confirmed both how this occurred and the steps now implemented within their organisation to ensure it does not re-occur," he said.

"As text alerting is one of the methods we use to alert people, we are testing the system this week to provide confidence that the recent issues have been addressed."

Civil defence has asked that people provide feedback on the test by:

• replying to the text from 2028 with "Yes" (which will cost 20c); or

• emailing your mobile number and if you received it or not to info@boprc.govt.nz.