This page shows the current official tsunami warning status for New Zealand. The status block below is read from the National Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Mobile Alert feed and rechecks itself every minute while the page is open. It relays NEMA’s own words, without summary or interpretation. Official warnings are always published first at civildefence.govt.nz.
There are no active tsunami warnings or advisories in the National Emergency Management Agency alert feed. Last checked 12.53am Wednesday 7 October 2026 NZT.
Status is read from the National Emergency Management Agency Emergency Mobile Alert feed and rechecked every minute. If you feel a long or strong earthquake near the coast, do not wait for this page or any official warning — move to high ground immediately.
If you feel a long or strong earthquake, do not wait for a warning
For a tsunami generated close to New Zealand, the first waves can arrive within minutes. No official warning system, including this page, can beat them. The National Emergency Management Agency’s guidance is blunt about this. “For a local source tsunami, which could arrive in minutes, there won’t be time for an official warning. It is important to recognise the natural warning signs and act quickly.”
NEMA’s rule is Long or Strong, Get Gone. In its own words, “If an earthquake is Long or Strong: Get Gone. Move immediately to the nearest high ground or as far inland as possible. Don’t wait for an official tsunami warning.”
NEMA says that if you are near the shore and experience any of the following, you should take action and not wait for official warnings.
- You “feel a strong earthquake that makes it hard to stand or a long earthquake that lasts more than a minute”
- You “see a sudden rise or fall in sea level”
- You “hear loud or unusual noises from the sea”
The full official guidance is on the government’s Get Ready tsunami page. It adds that you should Drop, Cover and Hold during the shaking itself, then move as soon as it stops. “Even if you can’t get out of your evacuation zone, go as far or as high as you can. Every metre makes a difference.” Walk, run or cycle if you can, and do not return until Civil Defence gives an official all clear.
Tsunami evacuation zones by region
Knowing your evacuation zone before an event is the single most useful piece of preparation. The quickest way to check is the national map on getready.govt.nz, where you can search your home, work or school address. Each Civil Defence Emergency Management group also publishes its own maps and local advice, linked below. The colours and number of zones vary from region to region. Some regions use red, orange and yellow zones, Northland, Waikato and Hawke’s Bay have moved to a single blue zone, Auckland uses red and yellow, and Taranaki uses purple, so always read the legend on your own region’s current map.
- Northland — Northland tsunami evacuation zones
- Auckland — Auckland Emergency Management tsunami information
- Waikato and Coromandel — Waikato tsunami information and hazards portal
- Bay of Plenty — Emergency Management Bay of Plenty tsunami zones
- Tairāwhiti Gisborne — Tairāwhiti tsunami inundation and evacuation maps
- Hawke’s Bay — Hawke’s Bay tsunami zone
- Taranaki — Taranaki Emergency Management tsunami information
- Manawatū and Whanganui — Manawatū-Whanganui Civil Defence tsunami information
- Wellington and Wairarapa — WREMO tsunami maps
- Nelson Tasman — Nelson Tasman tsunami evacuation maps
- Marlborough — Marlborough tsunami information
- West Coast — West Coast Emergency Management hazards
- Canterbury — Canterbury Civil Defence tsunami zones
- Otago — Otago Civil Defence tsunami zones
- Southland — Southland tsunami evacuation zones map
- Chatham Islands — Chatham Islands emergency management
If you live, work or holiday near the coast, practise your evacuation route on foot. Civil Defence calls this a tsunami hīkoi, and its advice is to walk, run or cycle rather than drive so evacuation routes do not jam with traffic.
How official warnings reach you
When a tsunami is generated far from New Zealand, there is time to assess the threat and warn people. GNS Science assesses the threat to New Zealand, drawing on data from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and deep ocean buoys, and NEMA decides whether to issue a national advisory or warning. Local Civil Defence Emergency Management groups then advise which areas or zones should be evacuated in their regions. The process is set out in NEMA’s public information guide on tsunami warnings and advisories.
Emergency Mobile Alert
Emergency Mobile Alerts are the loud, attention-grabbing messages that appear on your phone in a serious emergency. They are broadcast from cell towers to every capable phone in the targeted area, so there is nothing to sign up for and no app to download. Because the system targets cell towers rather than individual phones, NEMA notes “you cannot opt out of Emergency Mobile Alerts”. Most phones bought in New Zealand after 2017 can receive them, provided they are switched on, have reception and are not in flight mode. If there is a tsunami threat to land, NEMA sends an Emergency Mobile Alert to all capable phones in the areas under threat.
The system is tested nationwide once a year. NEMA’s 2025 preparedness survey found that “over 9 in 10 people in New Zealand received the test or were with someone who did”. You may not receive an alert if you are out of mobile coverage, cell towers are damaged, or the power is out, which is why the natural warning signs above matter most. Details are on the Get Ready Emergency Mobile Alert page.
Sirens, radio and other channels
Tsunami warnings are also broadcast on radio and television, and NEMA publishes them on civildefence.govt.nz. Some coastal districts operate tsunami sirens, but siren coverage, tones and meanings vary from district to district and many coastal areas have none. Get Ready’s advice is to contact your local Civil Defence Emergency Management group, which “can tell you about the warnings used in your area”. You can find your local group on the NEMA website.
What the warning levels mean
NEMA issues two levels of national tsunami alert, defined in its public information guide.
National Warning, land and marine threat. This is the most serious level. In NEMA’s definition, “Tsunami waves are expected to affect the land. A land and marine threat means that evacuations will be required.”
National Advisory, tsunami activity. This covers beach and marine threats. NEMA’s definition reads “There is a threat to beach and marine areas. The tsunami is likely to cause strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore. People should stay off beaches and out of the water.”
After a large Pacific earthquake you may also see a “Large Pacific Earthquake Being Assessed” advisory, which NEMA cautions “is not the same as confirmation of a tsunami threat for New Zealand”. A warning or advisory stays in effect until GNS Science advises the threat has passed, which NEMA notes “may take as long as 24 hours, as tsunami waves and currents can be dangerous long after the first waves arrive”. When that confirmation comes, NEMA issues a cancellation message.
New Zealand’s tsunami history and risk
Every part of the New Zealand coastline is at risk of tsunami, and the country’s record shows both how quickly they can arrive and how rarely they have killed anyone who moved. GNS Science notes New Zealand has had only one recorded tsunami fatality since European settlement, in 1868. That record reflects luck as much as anything, and the events below are why officials treat the hazard so seriously.
Fiordland, July 2026. The most recent tsunami warning came on 16 July 2026, after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck 40 kilometres north of Te Anau at 9.14pm. NEMA issued an Emergency Mobile Alert at 9.38pm telling people near the Fiordland coast to leave tsunami evacuation zones, cancelled it at 9.52pm as the threat was reassessed, and a beach and marine advisory for the coast between Milford Sound and Puysegur Point remained until 11.41pm. Our coverage of the Te Anau earthquake has the full timeline.
The Kermadec sequence, March 2021. On 5 March 2021 three large earthquakes struck in one morning, a magnitude 7.3 off East Cape at 2.27am, then a magnitude 7.4 and a magnitude 8.1 near Raoul Island in the Kermadecs. After the 8.1, people near the coast from the Bay of Islands to Whangārei, from Matatā to Tolaga Bay, and on Great Barrier Island were told to evacuate immediately. Whole communities, including all of Ōpōtiki and central Whangārei, moved inland through the morning before warnings were cancelled in the mid afternoon. GeoNet’s gauges measured surges of 35 to 40 centimetres at East Cape, small in the end, but nobody knew that at 8.30am.
Japan, March 2011. The magnitude 9.1 Tōhoku earthquake sent a tsunami across the entire Pacific. In New Zealand the surges measured under a metre on about 30 tide gauges, but they still flooded low-lying areas at Port Charles on the Coromandel up to 100 metres inland, and produced dangerous currents and sudden water-level changes for more than a day.
Chile, May 1960. The magnitude 9.5 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded, sent a tsunami that reached New Zealand about 12 hours later, arriving at night without warning. GeoNet records observations at more than 120 locations from Cape Reinga to Bluff, and NIWA puts the maximum water height at 5.5 metres in Lyttelton Harbour. Houses, roads and paddocks were inundated and stock killed, though no one died. Three days later, warning of a possible follow-up tsunami prompted authorities to evacuate almost the entire populations of Whitianga, Waihi Beach, Whakatāne, Ōhope and Ōpōtiki.
Gisborne, March 1947. New Zealand’s most instructive tsunami. A magnitude 7.0 to 7.1 earthquake offshore of Poverty Bay on 26 March 1947 produced waves along 115 kilometres of coastline about half an hour later, with water reaching about 10 metres above sea level at Pouawa Beach and a wooden bridge swept 800 metres inland. GeoNet notes that “residents at the time did not report extreme shaking from the earthquake”. It was a slow, long rupture rather than a violent one, which is exactly why the official rule is long or strong, not long and strong. Five people in a cottage demolished by the wave survived. A second offshore earthquake on 17 May 1947 generated another tsunami along the same coast.
The scale of the underlying hazard is what sets New Zealand apart. The Hikurangi subduction zone off the North Island’s east coast is capable of the same class of earthquake that drove the 2011 Japan tsunami, and it sits much closer to shore. You can watch how the waves from historical New Zealand earthquakes spread in our earthquake propagation replay tool, follow live seismic activity on our live earthquake map, and read about the country’s other geological hazards in our Taupō supervolcano explainer.
Common questions
Is there a tsunami warning in New Zealand right now?
The live status block at the top of this page shows whether any NEMA tsunami warning or advisory is currently in effect, and rechecks the official alert feed every minute. If the block says the status cannot be confirmed, check civildefence.govt.nz directly. If you have just felt a long or strong earthquake near the coast, do not wait for any warning. Move to high ground or inland immediately.
How would I be warned about a tsunami?
For a tsunami generated near New Zealand, the earthquake itself is the warning. For tsunami arriving from further away, official warnings come through Emergency Mobile Alerts to your phone, radio and television broadcasts, NEMA’s website, and in some districts sirens and other local arrangements. The natural warning signs always take priority, because official warnings can arrive too late for a local source tsunami.
What does Long or Strong, Get Gone mean?
It is the National Emergency Management Agency’s rule for tsunami self-evacuation. If an earthquake is long, lasting more than a minute, or strong, making it hard to stand, move immediately to the nearest high ground or as far inland as possible once the shaking stops. Do not wait for an official warning, a siren or a mobile alert.
Do I need to evacuate for every earthquake?
No. The evacuation rule applies if you are in a tsunami evacuation zone and the earthquake was long or strong, or if Civil Defence tells you to leave. Short, weak shaking that you can comfortably stand through does not trigger the Long or Strong rule. If you are unsure whether your home, work or school is in an evacuation zone, check the official zone map for your region using the links above.
Where are my local tsunami evacuation zones?
Every coastal region publishes official tsunami evacuation zone maps. The quickest way to check is the national map on getready.govt.nz, where you can search your address. The regional links in the evacuation zones section above go to each Civil Defence group’s own maps and advice.