Update 6am 17/07: The Civil Defence website is now back up, and the Tsunami Advisory has been cancelled at 11:27pm: "The National Advisory issued following the 5.9 earthquake near 40 km north of Te Anau at 2026-07-16 09:14 PM New Zealand Daylight/Standard Time is cancelled. The advisory has been cancelled because no tsunami signals have been detected by Earth Sciences NZ for approximately the past two hours following the event. This indicates that there is no ongoing tsunami activity affecting the area, and the threat has now passed."
Original post:
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The New Zealand Civil Defence government website went offline following a 5.9 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami warning.
The quake struck at 9.14pm. GeoNet recorded the epicentre 40 kilometres north of Te Anau at a depth of 53 kilometres.
A tsunami warning was issued for coastal areas of the South Island from Milford Sound to Puysegur Point.
The warning has since been downgraded to an advisory as seismologists revised the initial 6.3 magnitude measurement down to 5.9.
As of 10:38pm, the website is still down. Visitors are greeted with a “404 Not Found” error.
