In mid-December 2019, the New Zealand Government announced that the first four of an anticipated 12 tsunami-detecting DART buoys were deployed offshore of New Zealand.
DART stands for Deep--ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis. The technology was developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the US Government and was first introduced in 2001 with a six-buoy array deployed mostly in the North Pacific Ocean. By 2008 there were 39 stations deployed around the Pacific Rim and in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
