Our Civil Defence Emergency Management team together with NEMA held a 3 day workshop in September 2022 for agencies and emergency services. We were very fortunate to have experts share their knowledge and expertise. Videos of those sessions are below.

The purpose

To consider the response and recovery considerations of a Hikurangi M9 earthquake scenario offshore from Gisborne city. With the outcome to initiate development of the regional Hikurangi M9 plan for Tairāwhiti. Including the strategic response and recovery plan and inform that national planning for regional support

Setting the scene

Recent research has shown that the East Coast from Gisborne to Northland along with Banks Peninsula and the Chatham Islands have been historically hit by tsunami more often than in other parts of New Zealand. The Gisborne Tarāwhiti region is also more vulnerable to future tsunami.

In 1947, 2 relatively small earthquakes triggered local tsunami with wave heights exceeding 10m that had significant impacts from Wainui north to Tolaga Bay. But these were small events compared with the threat posed by a rupture of the Hikurangi Fault that lies off Gisborne and spans the eastern New Zealand north of Marlborough.

The great Japan or Tohoku Magnitude 9 earthquake in 2011occurred on a similar fault and graphically showed the impact a magnitude 9 event will have. Research in Marlborough has shown that 2 equivalent events have occurred on the Hikurangi Fault in the last 1000 years. But the last event was 500 years ago and there is a 1:4 chance of another rupture on the Hikurangi Fault occurring in the next 50 years.

Ben Green, David Wilson, Sam Aberahama, Nedine Thatcher Swann, Viviene Euini, Chris Hopman, Stace Tahere and Dr Murry Cave