New Zealand's emergency agency has told residents in some areas to head for higher ground after a powerful earthquake struck the Kermadec Islands region early Friday, sparking fears of a tsunami.
The 8.1-magnitude quake was the third to strike the area on Friday morning local time, according to the New Zealand National Emergency Management Agency.
People near the coast must "move immediately to the nearest high ground, out of all tsunami evacuation zones, or as far inland as possible. Do not stay at home," the New Zealand agency states on its website.
The Kermadec Islands are 500 - 620 miles northeast of New Zealand's North Island. The East Coast of the North Island from the Bay of Islands to Whangarei, from Matata to Tolaga Bay including Whakatane and Opotiki and Great Barrier Island are all included in the Pacific nation's tsunami warning.
"The earthquake may not have been felt in some of these areas, but evacuation should be immediate as a damaging tsunami is possible," the agency statement reads.
"People in all other areas who felt a long or strong earthquake that makes it hard to stand up, or lasted longer than a minute, should move immediately to the nearest high ground, out of all tsunami evacuation zones, or as far inland as possible."
The statement adds that the evacuation notice overrides Covid-19 advisories.
The quake also triggered warnings in Hawaii and in American Samoa, which were later canceled.
It was the largest to strike anywhere in the world since August of 2018, when an 8.2-magnitude quake struck much deeper underground, also in the South Pacific, near Fiji.
Only around one or fewer earthquakes of 8.0-magnitude or greater occur each year.
Source: CNN
Reader Comments
R.C.
Advisories??
Tell that to the business owners, subject to Health Dept inspections and reprisals for non-compliance.
And yet, ask the folks lined up to get their mRNA 'vaccines', and they'll tell you that forecasting earthquakes is 'impossible.'
I guess we can't save the world.
RC
As re religion, my father detested it (Southern Baptist Church told him that all of his black neighbors - they were the only white sharecroppers as far as the eye could see in SC ~1930's when and where he was born in a sharecropper's shack - again, that blacks were somehow less than 'them', the Southern Baptists - the anointed', and it stuck in his craw. Thus, we NEVER went to church (GREAT for surfing!)
I detest religions that allow or encourage forcible conversions and/or those that look down on others as less than human and which expressly cheer the usage of deceit for particular aims. (I bet you can guess which I'm speaking of.)
I'd bet that you've seen my prior posts about how pleasantly surprised I was when I read the New Testament and it wasn't all "Hang the fornicators!" as I thought it would have been.
Amen my friend.
Good night! (Where are you again?)
RC