Exercise Rū Whenua 2024

Exercise Rū Whenua aims to improve New Zealand’s ability to respond to and recover from a significant Alpine Fault earthquake.

What is Exercise Rū Whenua?

Exercise Rū Whenua (earthquake) is a national (Tier 4) exercise under the National CDEM Exercise Programme. It is also a significant activity under the Interagency National Exercise Programme.

The Exercise will take place over three main days – on 12 June, 26 June, and 10 July 2024. It will be based on an Alpine Fault earthquake scenario. This will test New Zealand’s arrangements for responding to and recovering from a major earthquake with widespread impacts.

Why do we need Exercise Rū Whenua?

Exercising is a core part of readiness and helps identify gaps and issues. The identified lessons are integrated into plans and procedures. They improve our ability to respond to and recover from emergencies.

We can’t predict when an earthquake will happen. But scientific research indicates there is a 75% probability of an Alpine Fault earthquake greater than magnitude 7 happening in the next 50 years. And there is a 4 out of 5 chance that it will be a magnitude 8+ event.

Geological evidence shows that the Alpine Fault has a regular history of producing large earthquakes. Over the last 8000 years, the Alpine Fault has ruptured 27 times. On average that’s every 300 years. The last significant quake on the Alpine Fault was in 1717.

The next severe earthquake on the Alpine Fault is likely to be within our lifetime or our children's. This will need a coordinated multi-agency national response and include international support.

The exercise will also be an opportunity to test or practice some of the lessons identified from the response to the North Island severe weather events in 2023.

What’s in it for you?

The exercise uses a realistic scenario developed by the AF8 Programme. It is a great opportunity to practise your agency’s arrangements for a major response. Particularly one that requires coordination and support from across New Zealand.

For the exercise, we assume Wellington will be disrupted but functional. The national response will not need to be led out of an alternative location.

How can you get involved?

Exercise Rū Whenua will be led by the National Emergency Management Agency. All CDEM Groups nationwide will support the exercise. We encourage other central government agencies, emergency services, lifeline utilities, and other support organisations to get involved.

Check back here in early 2024 to register your agency’s interest.

Resources

We’re developing a range of templates and resources for you to help plan the exercise in your agency. Check back here regularly for new materials.

CDEM Exercises Director’s Guideline for Civil Defence & Emergency Management Groups [DGL 010/19] – will be used by the Exercise Rū Whenua planning team for exercise planning. Participating agencies are encouraged to use this for Exercise Rū Whenua development.
Warning Order (160kb .pdf) – this is the initial notification of the exercise.
Coordinating instruction (478kb .pdf) – this provides basic details about the exercise and a scenario overview, including its aim, objectives, timing, formats and evaluation criteria.