Don't panic - Bay of Plenty Civil Defence tests alerts

Phones throughout the Bay of Plenty will have received test alerts from Bay of Plenty Civil Defence today.

The alerts are test only, and there is no emergency people need to be concerned about.

The civil defence announced on Facebook it was testing some of its alerting systems.

"These practice runs help us ensure our systems are working as they should for a real event," it said.

The civil defence test alerts include the Red Cross Hazard app; Text alerts; Fixed sirens in the Eastern Bay of Plenty only; Facebook and Twitter.

The national alerting tool, called Emergency Mobile Alerts (EMA), was not part of this Bay of Plenty test. The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management will be carrying out their annual test of this later in the year.