4 May 2006

Civil Defence all at sea over media work

Green Party MP Keith Locke has criticised national Civil Defence headquarters over slowness in letting the media know there was not a tsunami on the way.

"It is not acceptable that it took three and a half hours for the Civil Defence headquarters to put out a press release countering reports in the international media of a tsunami alert," Mr Locke, the party's Civil Defence Spokesperson says.

"For hours media outlets and the general public were unable to tell whether or not a tsunami was on the way - even though Civil Defence apparently knew within a quarter of an hour of the earthquake off Tonga.

"There should at least be a functional, emergency information system - covering phones, the internet and the media.

"This has been a good test run on the weaknesses in the present system, we must now learn from the problems it exposed," Mr Locke says.

ENDS

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