Sentinel™ · Earthquake early warning
Sentinel is New Zealand's first nationwide, ground-sensor earthquake early warning system. It gives people and automated systems up to a minute of warning before strong shaking reaches them.
When a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck near Te Anau in July 2026, Sentinel would have given someone in Queenstown around fifteen seconds of warning before the peak shaking arrived. Fifteen seconds is enough to take cover, stop a lift at the next floor, or halt a production line. The further you are from the epicentre, the more warning you get, up to about a minute. So the question is a simple one: if you knew an earthquake was coming, what would you do differently?
Detect. Our nationwide network continuously monitors seismic activity. The moment an earthquake begins, the system picks up the initial waves and confirms a significant event is underway.
Decide. Within the first seconds, real-time algorithms estimate the earthquake's size and location, and forecast the shaking expected across the whole of New Zealand.
Warn. If shaking is expected at your site, alerts go out immediately, both to people and to automated systems.
Act. Damage-mitigation procedures are triggered automatically to protect people and infrastructure before the shaking arrives.
Early warning is not just an alert. It is the right response, for the right people, at the right time. Sentinel's early warning is built to support multiple roles across your organisation, with practical, real-world actions.
Protect your people. Give staff critical seconds to protect themselves before strong shaking begins.
Safeguard your operations. Move buildings and equipment into safer states automatically.
Integrate with your systems. Bring early warning into the infrastructure you already run.
Scale across your portfolio. Manage alerts and responses across one site or many.
Sentinel early warning runs on a nationwide fleet of more than 500 ground sensors, the sensing infrastructure that makes rapid, reliable detection possible. It is backed by more than two decades of Canterbury Seismic engineering, supplying seismic instrumentation and services to New Zealand and the world, and tried and tested through several major earthquake sequences.
Tell us your sites, your people and the systems you would want to trigger. We will show you how Sentinel earthquake early warning could work for your organisation.
New Zealand's first nationwide, ground-sensor-based earthquake early warning system. It detects an earthquake as it begins and warns people and automated systems before the strong shaking reaches them, up to about a minute of warning depending on distance from the epicentre.
It depends on how far you are from the epicentre. Close to it, a few seconds. Further away, up to about a minute. The system forecasts the shaking expected at your site and warns you before it arrives.
Detect, decide, warn, act. A nationwide sensor network detects the first seismic waves, real-time algorithms estimate the size, location and expected shaking, alerts are issued to people and systems, and automated protective actions are triggered before the shaking arrives.
Drop, Cover and Hold messaging over a PA, halting machinery, opening emergency doors, sending lifts to the next floor, and actions through your BMS, SCADA or PLC. It can also fan out to your own APIs and internal systems.
Yes. Early warning runs on a nationwide fleet of more than 500 sensors covering New Zealand.
The network has been tried and tested through several major earthquake sequences, and modelled against real recent events. For example, a person in Queenstown would have had around fifteen seconds of warning before the peak shaking of the July 2026 Te Anau earthquake.