Aardbevingen en tsunami-veiligheid voor Nieuw-Zeelandse kampeerders

Vóór het schudden

Gebruik lokale evacuatiekaarten en borden om de route en het veilige gebied te vinden. Houd schoenen, zaklamp, warme kleding en essentiële medicijnen gemakkelijk bij de hand.

Parkeer niet over een evacuatiepad. In een druk kustkamp kan lopen sneller en veiliger zijn dan in de rij staan.

Lang of sterk, wegwezen

Als een aardbeving lang of krachtig duurt, ga dan onmiddellijk naar hoger gelegen gebied of zo ver mogelijk landinwaarts. Wacht niet op een officieel alarm, sirene of telefoonsignaal.

Laat het tijdens het schudden vallen, bedek het en houd het op een veilige plek vast. Nadat de evacuatie is gestopt, moet u uzelf tijdens de evacuatie beschermen tegen glas, takken en beschadigde constructies.

Blijf weg totdat het is opgeruimd

Tsunami-golven kunnen urenlang aanhouden en de eerste zijn misschien niet de grootste. Blijf buiten de zone totdat de scheidsrechters toestemming geven.

Verwacht beschadigde wegen en stroomverlies. Maak gebruik van radio- en officiële kanalen, bespaar de batterij van uw telefoon en help anderen zonder terug te hoeven gaan om apparatuur op te halen.

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.

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