Tsunami readiness test heading over Pacific

The question of whether New Zealand's emergency services could cope if a tsunami rolled in from the Pacific will be tested today in a Pacific-wide exercise.

Civil defence groups throughout the country expect to receive a message from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii alerting them to a possible tidal wave.

The scenario is that a magnitude 9.2 earthquake hits off the coast of central Chile at 1900GMT on May 16 (7am NZT).

A tsunami is generated and is simulated to take about 3 1/2 hours to reach New Zealand and about six hours to cross the entire Pacific.

Dummy bulletins will be issued to participating Pacific nations over the six-hour period so their civil defence services can activate emergency procedures.

Countries recommended to prepare for impact from the simulated Chilean tsunami include west coast countries of South, Central and North America, as well as the South Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand.

The manager of Auckland's Civil Defence emergency management office, Jim Stephens, said no one would be evacuated and the public would be unaware of the exercise taking place so as not to alarm people.

The exercise was designed for emergency services to practise response procedures to the step just prior to public notification.

He said the National Crisis Management Centre would receive the alert from Hawaii and this would then be passed on to regional and local emergency operations centres.

He said it was a valuable exercise to expose any weaknesses in the system.

"We haven't done this size of exercise before so it is likely there will be some things we have to tweak up afterwards, and that's what it's all about."

After the exercise a report will be sent to the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.

"It is a way in which the ministry can assess the capability and capacity of any one group to be able to manage this type of incident - it's very valuable," Mr Stephens said.

A report from all participating countries will be compiled and handed to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

According to the international tsunami information centre website the exercise will focus on two components of the warning system.

One, the evaluation and issuance of the warning message by tsunami warning centres, and the national and local response, and two, warning dissemination mechanism once a warning is received by emergency authorities. Mr Stephens said this international exercise had been months in the planning.

- NZPA