NZ's tsunami warning system 'inconsistent'
5:00AM Thursday April 19, 2007
By Angela Gregory
Many coastal communities would not recognise a tsunami warning. Photo / Alan Gibson
Warning systems about possible tsunami heading to New Zealand are not consistent among the country's coastal communities, a natural disasters conference heard yesterday.
Mike O'Leary, operations manager for the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, told the conference that getting warning information down to community level was patchy.
Mr O'Leary was specifically referring to the civil defence emergency management groups which were responsible for disseminating national warnings to local communities.
"That is our greatest vulnerability in New Zealand. There is a very patchy capability to do that across the country and in some cases it's not even identified."
Mr O'Leary said there were few proven and operating public alert systems such as sirens.
But he was personally not a great fan of the use of sirens in warning systems as their efficacy was debatable, there were problems with their maintenance and they could create a false impression of safety and security.
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