A group working on co-ordinating, planning and preparing for a severe rupture of the Alpine Fault has released a series of videos to provide ''basic information'' and help communities prepare.
For the past two years, the group has been basing its planning on the rupture of a 411km segment of the fault, stretching from Fiordland to Kaniere, on the West Coast.
The four two-minute videos provide information about how responses would be co-ordinated and how communities and businesses could be more resilient to the impact of emergencies.
Project AF8 steering group chairman Angus McKay, of Emergency Management Southland, said there was ''compelling'' geological evidence, dating back 8000 years, to show the Alpine Fault produced a significant earthquake of magnitude-8 or greater every 300 years, on average. Carbon-dating of sediment from two sites in Fiordland showed the last rupture occurred in 1717.
Some of New Zealand's ''best scientific minds'', from universities, Crown Research Institutes and GNS Science, had produced a ''credible scenario for what will happen with the next major earthquake on the Alpine Fault''.
''We have used that scenario to work with our partners to identify the foreseeable impacts on communities and critical infrastructure across the South Island.''
