Emergency agencies have questions to answer this morning after a false alarm was heard along a 50-kilometre stretch of coastal Bay of Plenty last night.
About 9:15pm, sirens sounded from Tauranga to Waihi - and some reports came in of them sounding further afield.
There was a report of an alarm sounding in Te Puke.
Many members of the public took the sirens to be a tsunami warning.
But the sirens were sounded in error - no one is clear why - and there was no tsunami threat.
The director of emergency management for Bay of Plenty, Clinton Naude speaks to Morning Report.