Earthquakes and tsunami safety for New Zealand campers

Before the shaking

Use local evacuation maps and signs to find the route and safe area. Keep shoes, torch, warm clothing and essential medication easy to grab.

Do not park across an evacuation path. In a crowded coast camp, walking can be faster and safer than joining a vehicle queue.

Stay away until cleared

Tsunami waves can continue for hours and the first may not be the largest. Remain outside the zone until officials give the all-clear.

Expect damaged roads and power loss. Use radio and official channels, conserve phone battery and help others without returning to collect equipment.

Long or strong, get gone

This is the official rule and it is worth memorising exactly. If an earthquake at the coast lasts longer than a minute, or is strong enough that you cannot stand up, move immediately to high ground or as far inland as you can. Do not wait for an official warning, because for a local-source tsunami there will not be time for one.

Go on foot if the ground allows it, because roads jam and bridges may be damaged. Aim for at least 35 metres above sea level or a kilometre inland, and stay there until officials say it is safe rather than returning after the first wave.

Choosing a coastal campsite with this in mind

When you arrive at a coastal site, spend a minute identifying the way to high ground. Many New Zealand coastal areas have marked tsunami evacuation routes and blue lines showing the safe zone boundary, and knowing where yours is costs nothing.

This matters most on the East Coast, Kaikōura, Wellington's south coast and the Bay of Plenty, all of which face significant local-source risk. It applies to a beachfront holiday park as much as a remote DOC site.

During the shaking

Drop, cover and hold on. In a tent, stay put and protect your head; the tent itself is unlikely to hurt you. In a campervan, stay inside and hold on rather than trying to get out, and if you are driving, pull over clear of bridges, banks and power lines and stay in the vehicle.

Expect aftershocks, sometimes for weeks. After a significant shake, check for damage to your site, avoid slopes and cliff bases that may now be unstable, and be cautious around any structure that has moved.

Being prepared to be self-sufficient

A significant earthquake can close roads, cut power and disrupt fuel and water supply for days, and in a remote area you may be genuinely on your own for a while. Carrying water, food, warm clothing, a torch and a charged power bank covers most of it.

Keep the fuel tank above half in seismically active regions where practical, and know that mobile networks may be congested or down. A battery radio is a genuinely useful item, because emergency broadcasting continues when the network does not.

Why this is worth thinking about here

New Zealand straddles an active tectonic plate boundary, records thousands of earthquakes a year and has a documented history of large local-source tsunami. The 2016 Kaikoura earthquake generated waves within minutes of the shaking.

For a local-source event no warning system can help in time. The shaking itself is the warning, which is why the official advice is built entirely around what you do without being told anything by anyone.

None of this should stop anyone camping on the coast. It takes one minute on arrival to work out where high ground is, and that single habit covers the whole risk.

Distant-source tsunami

A tsunami generated far away gives hours of warning, and official alerts will reach you through Civil Defence, radio and emergency mobile alerts. That is the situation where waiting for instruction is correct.

The distinction matters: local-source means move immediately without waiting, distant-source means follow the official advice. Knowing which one you are in comes down to whether you felt the earthquake yourself.

Places along the way