Media Release Archive

Eruption screens on TV3 at 8:30pm tomorrow. It is a New Zealand-made drama that follows several Auckland families in the days before a volcanic eruption in their city.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management has signed a contract with New Zealand telecommunications company, TeamTalk, to build a new alternative communications network for the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC).

Initial summary of New Zealand/Australian engineering visit to Chile

From Monday (31 May 2010) people might hear electronic civil defence emergency alarms on their radios.

Statistics New Zealand’s General Social Survey, released today, shows that 15% of households are prepared for a natural disaster, i.e. they have enough food and water stored to last three days, and they have an emergency plan.

New Zealand’s tsunami risk management programme has taken another step forward with the announcement today of a revised national Tsunami Advisory and Warning Plan.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management has added a Twitter feed to the emergency status bar on its website www.civildefence.govt.nz .

Thirty years ago, on Wednesday 8 August 1979, New Zealand’s biggest urban landslide hit Abbotsford in Dunedin.

In the last few weeks Waihi Village was evacuated because of a threatened landslide, Wellington rail and road links were closed by slips, tornadoes struck Kaitaia and Opunake, heavy rain caused flooding in Gisborne district and a large earthquake, followed by aftershocks, occurred in Fiordland.

The purchase of an electronic emergency management information system (EMIS) for the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) has come a step closer today with the issuing of registration of interest (ROI) documentation.

A formal “Administrative Arrangement” between the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and the Attorney-General’s Department of Australia has helped create better links between New Zealand’s and Australia’s national emergency management agencies.

The first anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, which claimed more than 70,000 lives and displaced 5 million people, will be marked at a New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE) presentation at Victoria University at the exact time of the earthquake on Tuesday May 12.

The earthquake that has struck the Abruzzo region of Italy is a tragic reminder that New Zealanders need to be prepared for earthquakes here.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management is encouraging local authorities and other organisations to comment on draft Building Safety Evaluation Guidelines.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management announced today that it recorded 968 weather and geological events in 2008.

Maintaining strong international links is, necessarily, a priority for civil defence emergency management in New Zealand.

UNESCO led tsunami exercise, “Pacific Wave 2008” is an opportunity for the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management to train staff and test its response to Pacific tsunami bulletins.

A warning to people channel surfing tomorrow night or starting to watch Aftershock on TV3 part way through after its 8.30pm start. The programme includes acted “news bulletins” and “interviews” that help it give a realistic portrayal of what might happen after a major earthquake hits Wellington. Do not be confused; it is dramatisation of events but is not the real thing!

Seeing New Orleans being evacuated ahead of Hurricane Gustav, it is timely to consider what New Zealanders would be able to do if we had to leave home in a hurry.

One of the “star attractions” at the National Civil Defence Emergency Management Forum at Parliament tomorrow will be big, green and mobile. It is Horizons Regional Council’s mobile education facility and emergency operations centre (EOC), the “Green Rig” (right). It will be set up in the forecourt at Parliament tomorrow.

Starting tomorrow, the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management is hosting a nationwide series of tsunami preparedness seminars.

New Zealand agencies involved in promoting earthquake safety are concerned that advice from a source discredited overseas is being circulated by e-mail in New Zealand.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management announced today that it recorded 204 weather and geological events in the first quarter of the year, 1 January 2008 to 31 March 2008.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management today distributed draft guidelines for planning mass evacuations.

Civil defence emergency management (CDEM) organisations will have better and faster access to science information through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and GNS Science.

The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management announced today that it recorded 900 weather and geological events or emergencies last year.

Maintaining strong international links has been set as a priority for the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management.

New Zealand’s ability to respond to civil defence emergency management (CDEM) events was strengthened today after the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and The Salvation Army signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) about welfare services.

Representatives from 24 countries and international agencies will be in New Zealand for the next two weeks for a major international disaster response training exercise.

As international Disaster Awareness Week gets underway, three on-line initiatives to help provide better information to the civil defence emergency management (CDEM) sector and the public have been announced.

It’s Disaster Awareness Week next week and New Zealand has again shown us how unpredictable our country can be and why we need to get ready and be prepared.

Impact is the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management’s quarterly journal.

The Get Ready Get Thru website which tells people how to prepare and recover from a disaster has been translated into seven languages, Maori, Arabic, traditional and simplified Chinese script, Hindi, Korean, Samoan and Tongan.

The Get Ready Get Thru website, which tells people how to prepare and recover from a disaster has been translated into Māori and seven other languages. The website has also been translated into Arabic, traditional and simplified Chinese script, Hindi and Korean. This makes it the most extensively translated website in New Zealand.

The Get Ready Get Thru website which tells people how to prepare and recover from a disaster has been translated into Maori, Samoan, Tongan and five other languages. The website has also been translated into Arabic, traditional and simplified Chinese script, Hindi and Korean. This makes it the most extensively translated website in New Zealand.

The latest swarm of earthquakes in the Bay of Plenty area highlights the need to be prepared, says Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management Director John Hamilton.

A New Zealand Special Service Medal Tsunami is to be presented in Feilding for services following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia.

Last night’s swarm of earthquakes in Auckland are a timely reminder that New Zealanders need to be prepared for all types of disasters which could happen anywhere and anytime, says the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.

The ability of New Zealanders to receive timely, authoritative messages in an emergency will be enhanced as the result of the agreement signed today between the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (MCDEM) and the country’s major radio broadcasters, says MCDEM Acting Director Bruce Ferguson.

New Zealanders may have only a few minutes warning if an undersea earthquake within close proximity of the coastline generates a tsunami, says The Ministry of Civil Defence Emergency Management.

Civil Defence Minister, Rick Barker, will officially launch The Civil Defence & Emergency Management National Public Education Programme next Tuesday at Parliament.

The success of today’s tsunami exercise shows New Zealand can have confidence in the ability of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (MCDEM) to manage a major emergency, says MCDEM Director John Norton.

The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management has assured citizens of Canterbury that the National Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Plan has been properly developed under the law. It is robust in dealing with major disasters from whatever cause.

New Zealand joins 28 countries from around the Pacific on May 17th, in the first international exercise to test warning procedures for a distant-source tsunami.

When the shaking starts, the best advice is still to Drop, Cover and Hold. The advice from civil defence and The NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering comes in response to a widely circulated email by a self-professed rescue expert.

A major exercise to be held in Christchurch in September will test how national and international agencies will work together in a significant earthquake in a major urban area in the Pacific region.