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JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON / Stuff
More than 1,500 properties on the Banks Peninsula, including those around Lyttelton Harbor, are considered to be under threat of flooding from a tsunami.
Another 146 properties on the Banks Peninsula are now considered to be under threat of flooding if a tsunami hits the Canterbury coast.
The Christchurch City Council has updated its tsunami evacuation zones on the peninsula based on new scientific research.
Now about 1549 street addresses are included. The previous total was 1403.
“The latest model shows us that in most areas, tsunami flooding can spread further inland than allowed in evacuation zones from previous tsunamis,” said the head of emergency management at the Civil Defense council, Rob Orchard.
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The information will be added to land information memoranda (LIM).
People can check if their property is in a tsunami zone by viewing an interactive map on the council’s website.
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Tsunami evacuation zones have been reviewed throughout the Banks Peninsula.
The new zones are based on modeling of tsunamis from GNS Science and the National Institute for Water and Atmosphere Research (NIWA) generated by earthquakes of magnitude greater than 9 off the coasts of South and Central America, in the subduction zones from Kermadec and Hikurangi and elsewhere around the Pacific Ocean.
The Banks Peninsula overhaul comes after the Christchurch Tsunami Evacuation Zones were overhauled last year and resulted in the addition of an additional 12,600 homes in the city.
There are two tsunami evacuation zones, red and orange, throughout most of the Banks Peninsula. In Birdlings Flat there are three: red, orange and yellow.
The red zone is an area that is most likely to be affected by a tsunami. It includes estuaries, rivers, beaches and ports, where a tsunami of any size could cause strong currents and swells in the water.
Orange covers areas on land that could be flooded in the event of a large tsunami.
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A worst-case South American tsunami combined with higher sea levels could flood 5% of Christchurch, a mid-2019 report shows (The video was first posted in December 2019).
“If you are in the red or orange zones and feel a rolling earthquake for more than a minute or a strong earthquake that makes it difficult for you to stand up, you should leave the area. When the shaking stops, immediately go to the closest high ground or as far inland as you can, outside of the red and orange zones, ” Orchard said.
The yellow tsunami evacuation zone is an area that is less likely to be affected by a tsunami, but could be flooded or isolated in a very large tsunami.
“If you are in the yellow zone, you should only leave the area if you receive an official warning from the Civil Defense Emergency Administration.”
The warnings would be given through a mobile emergency alert to the resident’s phone, radio, television and social media, Orchard said.
The council is holding walk-ins to discuss the new zones next week in Little River, Allandale and Akaroa.
