The tsunami which wrecked havoc on coastlines throughout Asia reached New Zealand, 17 hours after it was triggered by a massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said Tuesday.
Surges of between 10 cm and 30 cm were recorded between 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. (NZ time) Monday morning at tidal gauges at New Plymouth of the North Island, Bluff and Jackson Bay, 44 km southwest of Haast on west coast of the South Island, NIWA science leader of natural hazards Rob Bell told New Zealand Press Association.
The earthquake - the most powerful in 40 years - hit at about 2 p.m. (NZ time) off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra and caused tidal waves that slammed into coastlines across Asia killing tens of thousands of people in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Thailand and the Maldives.
The tsunami had to "bend" around Australia and by the time it reached New Zealand, 8,000 km from its epicenter, it had dissipated, Bell said.
"It's just like throwing a rock into a lake, it just ripples out," he said.
He said the surge was too small for people at beaches to notice. "It takes a trained eye to look at the charts and know this is happening. It's a bit like a seismograph, you can pick it up but no one feels the earthquake."
The last tsunami to hit New Zealand was in 1960 and was triggered by a Richter 9.0 earthquake in Chile, Bell said.
It bought 5 m surges to Lyttelton on the South Island and caused a lot of damage to the town.
"Fortunately we were spared loss of life and more damage because it struck at low tide," he said.
Meanwhile in Australia tidal surges up to a meter high were recorded along the western coast throughout Sunday evening and into Monday morning.