Question: what do you think the worst nature hazard in new zealand?

Alex Cartwright answered on 16 Jan 2026:

I don’t think there is one single worst natural hazard in NZ. We can list how bad natural hazards are by lots of different things: how frequently they occur, how many people die or are injured, how much the cost the economy…

The cost tends to be the one that drives lots of rankings. For New Zealand, like much of the world, flooding is our most common and costly natural hazard. For many that experienced a big earthquake, like the Canterbury Earthquake sequence of 2010/11, the effects of this event still live on now, ~15 years later.

The worst natural hazard depends heavily on your personal experiences.