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6:00 am, July 31st, 2025 - 54 comments
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Today's Posts (updated through the day):
Can we trust Shane Jones?
Wasn't winston going to remove gst from council rates?
Who else was totally sick of the constant blaring alarms through the night for a risk that was insignificant?
A look at the world map is enough to see that NZ was never in danger of major tsunami risk. Fair enough to warn people not to go swimming should anyone be tempted to go swim at the beach in the middle of the night during winter.
But to warn people to stay away from waterways altogether was totally unnecessary. All this is going to do is create a "cry wolf" situation where people end up ignoring warnings when the big one does happen.
My wife organises a walking group. She cancelled because the walk she had organised was near a waterway about 7 km inland. We live in a subdivision about three kilometres closer to the sea than that, not too far away from a river. I said to her that if she seriously thought people might drown due to a tsunami powerful enough to push a tsunami 7 km inland, then the whole subdivision should be evacuated by that logic.
So, fine to send out a warning. But, keep it proportionate to the actual risk, and don't spread unnecessary panic.
I noticed that disparity between the alarmism and the prospect of harm. Thing is, size of quake is one thing, context in which it occurs is the other. Normally the regional contours funnel the effect in various directions, but the media remains opaque on this.
Historically we know that tsunamis around the Pacific rim span the ocean somewhat, which justifies alarmism. So they use the precautionary principle in operating our nationwide alerts. The merit of that encultures everyone to act accordingly.
Since I bought my place 100m up the local cliff from the Tasman, I knew the warnings were totally irrelevant here. Yet 8.8 is immense, so I get the national alarmism. I think you are right about cry wolf syndrome, so I hope everyone trends toward pragmatic comprehension around risk management…
I get that. But, we live in Canterbury. We have had experiences with major quakes in South America. One large quake of over 8 I remember caused the sea to rise about one metre in Lyttleton harbour as I remember. So, I knew that we were at zero risk of an event that could cause risk beyond any unusual currents that might affect swimmers.
There was plenty of time to see how the tsunami was behaving in areas much more directly exposed to the tsunami. That should have given some indication of what we would experience here.
As I said, the risk should be kept proportionate to what it actually is if we want people to respect the warnings. We should also remember that the warnings themselves actually cause a lot of stress to people which is also very harmful. Particularly in areas like Christchurch where we have had our experience of real earthquake disasters.
I got one blaring alarm when I was driving home. I imagine that some people could be distracted by that when driving and end up having an accident.
So, I think there needs to be more thought about when the alarms should be issued, the risk they specify, and how often they should be issued.
The main comms issue I saw was that the 8.8 messaging didn't initially tell people they didn't have to evacuate. I'm confident CD will have learned from this.
They only sent two alarms, the other ones were a technical glitch.
I'm curious if there was an imminent threat to the road you were on when driving, would you want or not want to be warned by cell phone alarm? Or you were driving to the beach to get in your boat and fish the river mouth.
It's not just swimmers. It's people walking, people in and on rivers at river mouths, people on jetties and so on. I don't think anecdata is useful for determining risk across different quakes from different parts of the world. How high the local tide is when the tsunami arrives is another factor.
My guess is that they are erring on the side of caution with this one, because they don't know exactly what will happen. People can take a cry wolf attitude, myself I'm grateful that we get to practice before it's a catastrophic event, and I definitely want CD put through its paces. We've only really thought hard about tsunami since the Chch quakes, and getting systems put in place has taken a long time. Most places still aren't prepared for the predicted AF8+ quake.
Alerts and responses are designed to make as many people aware as possible, but also to take account of people who don't think about things or are just stupid (eg risk takers). You can feel safe and smug on your clifftop, but there are many more people in the outdoors now with little skill and when shit goes wrong it's other people that have to put themselves at risk to sort it out.
I'm a night owl, so the idea that people might be out in nature around midnight seemed totally normal to me.
I'm more inclined to say since the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. It made everyone realise just what tsunamis are, how they work, and the devastation they can cause.
Having said that, an awful lot of people didn't take it seriously during the Kaikoura quake, even the ones who live in tsunami zones. Much as it was miserable being up a hill all night, those of us who were weren't there for the fun of it. It's scary that people don't take it seriously.
Think you are right about 2004.
Kaikoura was interesting because it was after midnight right? Most people wouldn't even know there was an issue. I was up and listening to RNZ, who were doing their best but the comms wasn't great, or at least CD didn't know what was going to happen? Erring on the side of caution is prudent.
It was just after midnight, and there was a lot of confusion re warnings. What I found interesting was, even when you know what you should be doing- i.e. running for the hills because of the size of the quake and being in a tsunami zone- when in the middle of it, the idea of a tsunami didn't even cross my mind yet alone register that I had to leave home and it was another hour before it became an official warning.
The Kaikoura quake actually did cause a few tsunamis. One hit in a local bay here on banks penninsula and caused a bit of damage. But that was much closer than the quake yesterday which was thousands of kilometres away. The energy dissipates a huge amount over that distance.
I think it was for the Kaikoura earthquake that I got the data from the buoys in Wellington harbour and could see the water slopping from side to side in the harbour for quite a while. Unfortunately, I can't find the graphs I made of it now.
The other thing is the Tongan trench and the two ridges that run between Tonga and NZ causes the water to get directed towards NZ.
Magnitude 8.8 is fairly strong – it will be in a clear third place once this list is updated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
Wolf – Wooooolf! This sounds fantastic. Surely there would be significant reductions in global inconvenience, not to mention major cost reductions, if we dispensed with agencies that generate chronically disproportionate warnings, and simply tapped in to your good old fashioned common sense.
Where do I sign up for your hindsight assessments of "the actual risk" of seismic and weather events?
By using science not panic. There is a network of tsunami guages through the Pacific that give an indication of how tsunami waves are behaving.
Notice on the Geonet website that the warning is:
That advice is fine and accurate, and I would have been happy if that had been the message.
But the message coming through that caused my wife to cancel her walking group was to stay away from rivers, waterways etc. That was far too general, and out of proportion to the actual risk as specified which applied to the beach.
The advice as given is more likely to cause panic that they might be flooded than to actually prepare people for the true risk.
The EM advice made it very clear that evacuation wasn't necessary, just get off and stay away from water. If people are going to panic over that, maybe they they lessons in basic comprehension.
If the message(s) that came through had ended with "Proceed at your own risk", would that satisfy you? After all, some hindsight experts are all over the 'inconvenience' caused by warning messages that underestimate risks.
Estimating the severity of downstream risks due to seismic and (forecast) weather events is not an exact science – please use your common sense.
Bit hardcase getting one when one lives at 600 meters above see level!
Maybe they could just send the alerts to the relevant cell towers!?
they did send to the relevant cell towers (I’m inland and didn’t get one). People in range of that tower will be at all sorts of elevation. You want to reach the people on the cliff, in case they decide to go for a walk at the river mouth on the beach below the cliff, but even if you didn’t, the cell tower can’t be targeted that specifically.
After the initial message, we had several after 10.30 at night and one early in the morning which was really annoying. I see it has been acknowledged there was a glitch in the system that caused that. But, people getting that sort of message overload would likely think something major must be happening.
I am not saying warning messages shouldn't be sent. But that they should be accurate and proportionate to the risk if we want people to respect them. Otherwise people will become immune to them and ignore them when something major actually does happen.
yes, but you seem to be saying the response generally was disproportionate (not just the extra alerts), and I think that's a problem for all the reasons I just outlined.
This is not the first set of responses we've had to a tsunami, but it's the biggest I think. I'm ok with them erring on the side of caution. We (CD, NZ, scientists) don't have a huge amount of experience with this. I doubt that the evac systems will work well in event of a larger tsunami, the whole long/strong/get gone thing is great, but what happens when people in cars get gridlocked? Maybe this is a problem that cannot easily be solved so they don't talk about it, but people in coastal areas should think about it and instead of cry wolf narratives, we could be talking about what to do if it had been bigger.
Apparently there was a sizeable tsunami in 1960 that led to the setting up of the street alarms (now disbanded). That's another example of using an event to improve things, but also of just how bad we are at prioritising systems when out of sight/out of mind.
I don't think we fundamentally disagree. I just think the message was too general. For example, it advised to stay away from rivers. If it had just referred to river mouths, that would have given a better indication of the size of the event they were expecting. And I wouldn't have had a problem with that.
But, my wife was envisaging water surging 7 km inland to where they were walking based on the information sent out. That response was obviously not justified given the actual risk. But, really, she had no reason to think differently.
If people panic when they don't need to, we could be getting clogged roads etc that could be preventing ambulances from getting to people with real emergencies etc. So, it is a real problem.
Just ensure the messaging is accurate, and people will respect that. If the messaging is over-hyped, they will start ignoring it because it will all start sounding like hyperbole.
I seriously doubt that CD can determine risk for every river in NZ.
But they could pay hedence to the Geonet warning that limits the risk to the beach.
you'll have to quote it (your link is just to the front page), but afaik it's not just risk to the beach.
It does say at the shore, which is probably a bit more general as not all costal locations have a beach. But the shore is where the land meets the sea. So, the same idea.
What a bunch of woke whiners we are.
Better safe than sorry every time.
Can you imagine the moaning if a necessary alert didn’t happen.
Nowhere have I said that there shouldn't have been an alert. Only that it should be accurate and proportionate to the actual risk.
Can you imagine the chaos if an over-hyped warning caused people to clog up the motor ways so ambulances couldn't get to emergencies?
You sir win the prize for the best comment of the week.
Some people would moan if their arse was on fire, and they then got wet when the fire was put out.
In the 2011 Japan earthquake, the subsequent tsunami made it's way 10km inland. If you watch the videos, it definitely made use of the waterways which are lower lying.
(Terrible footage for excusable reasons)
The Thames has a tideway 89km upstream of the Thames estuary. Not a great place to be in a tidal wave unless they can get the Thames barrier down in time. I couldn't find anything about the tideways of NZ rivers but they are faster flowing so most likely considerably shorter.
Arh i see, I only had 1 so maybe they do a general incase I'm off to the beach?
People don't like being alerted when the risk is low – they call it 'alarmism'.
People are furious if they are not alerted when the risk is high – they call it 'negligence'.
To suggest that the level of alert should be calibrated to the level of risk, assumes that risk can be calculated with sufficient precision to do that. And second, it assumes that risk can be expressed as a single value/data point across the very wide range of activities that the public are likely to be engaged in – from walking by an estuary 7km inland to fishing off a 4m kayak close to coastal reefs (winter is a good time to do this).
Also, Civil Defence staff are much less likely to get fired for alarmism than for negligence.
I'd guess you dislike the whole thing because you feel it points to some wider cultural malaise – where ordinary people just aren't able to exercise good judgment and personal responsibility any more and everything's going to the dogs. Personally, I am lazy, irresolute and not very bright, so I'm just happy someone cares enough to alert me that something dangerous might be happening.
All they needed to do was repeat the warning on the Geonet website.
But, they embellished that so that it seemed a lot more serious. One of our workers was staying at a camping ground near the sea. He said residents were freaking out every time an alarm came through. The warning should not have created that sort of distress.
which was what exactly?
So the FBI are investigating our govt. Hmm. Nice to see the head honcho is doing it himself. Kiwis entrained in diy will be impressed!
Well she didn't rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 for their good looks, so she wasn't open enough to have cause for concern. One does wonder why he was accompanied by a team but these things must remain confidential, eh? Perhaps a security detail lest muslim terrorists are on his trail. Being gunned down in the Beehive by a passing tourist would be godalmighty embarrassing for all concerned.
Bomber no comprehendo: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2025/07/30/wait-what-the-epstein-files-are-in-new-zealand/
Don't fret, you'll have plenty of company. No, he won't be chasing the Epstein file. Showbiz shit is for underlings. He's top honcho, so he'll be on some kind of Trumpian jaunt, trying to discover if anyone in govt here is a useful idiot. A plethora of choices will automatically present itself to him, as if a smorgasbord…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/568540/fbi-to-open-standalone-office-in-wellington
If you want a comment.
Palantir Panopticon Society has come for us.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/30/palantir-peter-thiel-cia-data-crime-police
It''s tech is used by the NSA, CIA and FBI, and ended their silos (Homeland Security and all that
https://builtin.com/articles/what-is-palantir
Thought they were the local feds in the USA and the CIA were the away team?
This is just weird. What jurisdiction does the FBI have in New Zealand? What have they been promised? Or is it more we are a playground for teams of international moops?
Stuff’s reporting here:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360776778/fbi-opening-base-wellington-after-director-kash-patel-makes-secret-visit-capital
It's sort of posed as the Five Eyes Europol (global
Interpol).
Having a base here is next level though.
One country doesn’t station police in another country unless that country is part of their empire.
What the fuck for?
Wasn’t there a huge furore when the CCP was accused of having police monitoring their citizens here?
Well said Seb Coe. World Athletics finally says that people wishing to compete in the Female Category at the elite level have to be actually female.
"Commenting on the new regulations and SRY test, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said: “The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women's sport. It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling. The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case.
“We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology."
A simple cheek swab tells the truth about your sex.
that last sentence is particularly important for the people who've been going on about genital inspections. It's a once in a lifetime test.
Yes, they know it is a cheek swab or blood test but they have to lie that it is an "invasive and personal" procedure. It is less invasive than a urine test for banned substances that elite athletes have to be subjected to on a random basis.
I think all Olympic medal winners get dope tested.
In particular testosterone testing. Usually doping with testosterone is assessed across two samples detecting both the normal level for a particular athlete and a change from that level (as testosterone levels naturally vary between people more than over time).
When however a testosterone test for an athlete comes out with testosterone levels in the male range, this is going to be extremely suspicious as the middle normal male testosterone range doesn't overlap with the female range even at the highest end. Typically this indicates the athlete has a DSD condition. The lab tests would not indicate doping for this, but it's hard to believe the sporting federation would not be aware and made aware of the athletes status during this occurring.
I got a salutary lesson on the power of the sea on visiting Oahu’s North Shore at the Banzai Pipeline. A lifelong dream, p.s beware of them, dreams that is. The waves at the North Shore arrive from a long way away, actually from near to the latitude of last nights quake. They tend to join up over such a distance which makes them so big. It was paddleable and body surfable, 20 or so kids were doing stuff training nearby. The waves are not like here, ours are generally ‘ A ‘ shaped, so you can turn your shoulder to them and let them pass under you, but the 3rd one was bigger than the preceding couple, probably the 7 th of 7, anyway as the sea lifted I said a quiet “ Oh shit” to my self, as at the crest the sea surface stretched out flat as far as I could see. There’s nothing like personal experience to fully understand a phenomena, this is what tsunami waves are like, they are not really waves, they are the entire ocean surface rising up and backing up over a huge distance, hence they can travel very large distances inland and particularly up rivers and over flat land. They are not our wind driven A shaped beach waves that collapse once they meet resistance . That is why the warnings are so broad and insistent. Ther is plenty of evidence all around our coast of how big tsunamis have been, the Japanese have stone markers on the sides of roads which date back centuries, our blue lines are a version of them, the Boxing Day one reached over 7 kms inland and there is some evidence in Wales and England of one coming in from the Atlantic that reach a huge distance inland.
tsunami waves are like, they are not really waves, they are the entire ocean surface rising up and backing up over a huge distance, hence they can travel very large distances inland and particularly up rivers and over flat land.
This is the key feature. I recall having that revelation when I saw a diagram of the profile: it's the momentum of all that water powering in behind the wave-front that gives it the effect people don't foresee. I didn't get it from surfing like you, just from a diagram and intuitive grasp of the physics involved.
From an educator's point of view, the key to realisation didn't come during my physics education long ago! In those days, despite multitudinous exam passing, momentum remained an abstract concept. I think it was Fukushima that got me into comprehending the inertial effect of that much water flowing in a huge mass.
Further to that, I commented onsite here some years ago reporting what a farmer told me on a permaculture visit. We were up on his plateau, at least 100m above the distant shore at Cooks Beach east of Whitianga, where a series of tsunami came in from the erupting caldera in the Kermadec Trench to the north in the 14th century.
He described how the sloshing around had shifted the topsoil, and he had discovered pockets that were 2m deep! So they had flowed right across the flatland below, up the hillside and across the top before receding. I later checked his account online and found it had been independently reported elsewhere…
All waves are wind driven and the difference between waves at different places is period, the time between the same point on consecutive waves.
We have lots of short-period slop, swell generated by local winds travels short distances to arrive with little energy. We have our share of long-period waves too, swell generated in the southern ocean travels vast distances, arrives with lots of energy. Same in Hawaii. They have their share of locally generated short-period slop with little energy and they have powerful long-period swell generated by sub-arctic storms in the north Pacific. Big difference though is that Hawaii has no continental shelf
Near-shore bathymetry dictates the shape of breaking waves.
Off-shore bathymetry is a factor in determining how much energy there is in a breaking wave. Here, the distance from deep ocean to water shallow enough for a wave to break can be a hundred or more kilometres. Hawaii, a half kilometre or less.
A measure of the energy in a wave is period, the time between the same point on consecutive waves.
The wave period of our locally generated slop can be as little as 2-6 seconds. A wave generated in the southern ocean can arrive in Raglan with an 8-12 second period. A wave generated in the north Pacific can arrive in Hawaii with a 16-18 second period.
The wave period of a tsunami can be anywhere between minutes to hours.
All waves are not wind driven. You can create waves in a bath for example, to demonstrate this.
The direction of travel and form of earthquake generated waves is a result of the earth movement not winds.
Arguably also tides are a large underlying wave primarily due to the moons gravity.
These different causes result in differences in the waves typically formed.
I knew about the dynamics Denis but the lesson was the power compared to the smaller ones. It threw me a long way up the beach, twisted over a few times and subluxxed a disc and spent the next 2 weeks trying to get straightened out. I did get to paddle at Waimea Bay, the home of the huge waves on bedroom posters from the sixties, the surf was not even ankle high! Bloody nature, it’s not to be trusted.
Ah, if only we had an enlightened government that put the interests of NZ first, not just the 'wealthy and sorted!'
Australia wipes $16 billion in student debt!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/568592/australia-wipes-au-16-billion-off-student-loans-targeting-cost-of-living-relief
Wow! Funded by the coal industry, I suppose, but worth applause regardless.
Just watch Hipkins try to wriggle out of that one!!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/568592/australia-wipes-au-16-billion-off-student-loans-targeting-cost-of-living-relief