Collapse Index

Kia mataara · Stay alert

Volcanic landscape at night with glowing lava seams

Live existential risk readout

How close are we to the end of the world as we know it?

27 tracked threats — existential and civilisation-changing — scored continuously for the world and for Aotearoa New Zealand.

To midnight7minutes

Midnight = civilisation as we know it ends

Global posture: ElevatedIndex 52.4 / 100
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Threat board

Ranked highest risk first. Select any threat for a full briefing — what it is, what it means for Aotearoa, warning signs, how to prepare and where to read more.

Global · Technological

Artificial Intelligence

Severe
72/ 100 risk index

Frontier models are outpacing governance. Labour displacement, autonomous weapons and loss-of-control scenarios all sit on the same curve.

Full briefing

Global · Conflict

Nuclear War

Severe
68/ 100 risk index

Arms control treaties have lapsed, warhead modernisation is accelerating, and multiple nuclear-armed states are in active confrontation.

Full briefing

Global · Technological

Critical Infrastructure Cyberattack

Severe
67/ 100 risk index

State actors are pre-positioned inside power, water and telecom networks. The first move of the next war is unlikely to be kinetic.

Full briefing

Global · Climate

Severe Weather

Severe
66/ 100 risk index

Record ocean heat is loading the dice for compound events: floods, drought and cyclones arriving in the same season.

NASA EONET active severe storms

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

Global · Society

Information Collapse

Severe
64/ 100 risk index

Synthetic media is now cheaper than truth. Shared reality is the substrate every other response depends on.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Geophysical

Alpine Fault Rupture

Severe
64/ 100 risk index

A 75% chance of a major rupture within 50 years, with an 82% chance it is M8+. The South Island would be cut in pieces for weeks.

Full briefing

Global · Economic

Supply Chain Failure

Severe
63/ 100 risk index

Chokepoint shipping, chip concentration and just-in-time inventory. Most cities hold roughly three days of food on shelves.

Full briefing

Global · Conflict

Great Power War

Severe
61/ 100 risk index

Simultaneous flashpoints in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. Alliance tripwires make local wars go global.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Climate

NZ Cyclones & Flooding

Severe
59/ 100 risk index

Gabrielle was the costliest disaster in NZ history. Warmer seas mean ex-tropical systems arrive further south, more often.

Full briefing

Global · Biological

Bioweapons & Pandemics

Severe
58/ 100 risk index

Gene synthesis is cheap and increasingly automated. Engineered pathogens are now a garage-scale risk, not a state-scale one.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Economic

NZ Import Dependence

Severe
57/ 100 risk index

Fuel, pharmaceuticals and fertiliser almost entirely imported, with no refinery. A shipping disruption is a national event.

Full briefing

Global · Society

Civil Unrest & Democratic Breakdown

Severe
57/ 100 risk index

Contested elections, political violence and institutional distrust across multiple major democracies at the same time.

Full briefing

Global · Climate

Food & Water Security

Severe
56/ 100 risk index

Aquifer depletion, fertiliser dependence and simultaneous breadbasket failures. Four countries supply most of the world's exported grain.

Full briefing

Global · Economic

Hyper-inflation & Debt

Severe
55/ 100 risk index

Sovereign debt loads at wartime highs during peacetime. Currency confidence is the thin layer holding the system together.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Economic

NZ Electricity & Fuel Security

Elevated
53/ 100 risk index

A dry-year hydro system, no domestic refinery, and roughly three weeks of onshore fuel cover for the whole country.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Geophysical

NZ Earthquakes

Elevated
52/ 100 risk index

Aotearoa sits on the plate boundary. The Alpine Fault has a high probability of rupture within the next 50 years.

GeoNet felt quakes, last 24h

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

Global · Biological

Antimicrobial Resistance

Elevated
51/ 100 risk index

A slow-motion pandemic. Routine surgery and childbirth get dangerous again as last-line antibiotics fail faster than replacements arrive.

Full briefing

Global · Technological

Power Grid Collapse

Elevated
48/ 100 risk index

Ageing transformers with multi-year lead times, rising load from electrification and AI datacentres. Cascading failure is the failure mode.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Geophysical

Hikurangi Tsunami

Elevated
47/ 100 risk index

The subduction zone off the East Coast can produce a local tsunami arriving in minutes. Long or strong, get gone.

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Biological

NZ Biosecurity Incursion

Elevated
45/ 100 risk index

Foot-and-mouth or a major horticultural pest would halt exports overnight. Primary industry is over 80% of goods exports.

Full briefing

Global · Space Weather

Coronal Mass Ejection

Elevated
44/ 100 risk index

A Carrington-class storm would take down transformers, satellites and GPS. Live geomagnetic activity is tracked below.

NOAA planetary K-index

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

Global · Technological

Autonomous Systems

Elevated
41/ 100 risk index

Armed drones and autonomous ground systems are being fielded faster than the rules that govern them. Human-in-the-loop is eroding.

Full briefing

Global · Space

Solar Flare Activity

Elevated
40/ 100 risk index

X-class flares black out HF radio and GPS within minutes of the light arriving — no warning time, unlike a CME.

GOES X-ray flux class

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

Aotearoa NZ · Geophysical

NZ Volcanic Activity

Elevated
38/ 100 risk index

Twelve monitored volcanic systems, including the Auckland field and the Taupō caldera. Alert levels are read live from GeoNet.

GeoNet volcanic alert levels

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

Global · Geophysical

Global Seismicity

Elevated
35/ 100 risk index

A live count of significant earthquakes worldwide, plus the largest magnitude recorded in the past day.

USGS M4.5+ quakes, last 24h

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

Global · Technological

EMP Event

Watch
33/ 100 risk index

A high-altitude detonation or severe solar event would strand a modern grid for months. Almost nothing critical is hardened.

Full briefing

Global · Space

Asteroid Impact

Watch
22/ 100 risk index

Low probability, absolute consequence. Live count of near-Earth objects passing today, and how many are flagged hazardous.

NASA close approaches today

Reading live feed…

Full briefing

It is not if, but when

A century of Aotearoa's own reminders. Every one of these arrived on an ordinary day.

  1. 2023CycloneCyclone GabrielleNZ's costliest natural disaster. 11 lives lost, Hawke's Bay and Tairāwhiti cut off for days.
  2. 2023FloodAuckland Anniversary FloodsRecord rainfall in hours. Four deaths, thousands of homes damaged, the airport underwater.
  3. 2020PandemicCOVID-19Borders closed, supply chains disrupted, four years of aftershocks in prices and health systems.
  4. 2019VolcanicWhakaari eruption22 killed with no useful warning window. Alert levels are not a forecast.
  5. 2016EarthquakeKaikōura M7.825 faults ruptured at once. State Highway 1 and the main trunk line severed for over a year.
  6. 2011EarthquakeChristchurch M6.3185 deaths. A city centre lost, and a decade of insurance and rebuild disruption.
  7. 1998InfrastructureAuckland CBD power crisisFive weeks without power in the central city after all four supply cables failed.
  8. 1931EarthquakeHawke's Bay M7.8256 deaths — still the deadliest disaster in New Zealand's recorded history.

What actually helps

None of the numbers above are actionable. These four are.

01

Water

3 litres per person per day, minimum 7 days stored. Rotate it. Know where your nearest untreated source is.

02

Power & comms

Battery or solar radio, power bank, printed contact list. Assume no cell network and no EFTPOS.

03

Food & warmth

Two weeks of food that needs no cooking, plus a way to cook outdoors. Blankets, sturdy shoes by the bed.

04

Plan & people

A meeting point, an out-of-town contact, and neighbours who know who lives alone on your street.

Get prepared

Want to do something useful with this information?

Preparing.nz is a practical guide for New Zealanders who want to be ready for the unexpected — earthquakes, storms, power cuts, pandemics and more.

Visit preparing.nz

How the index works

Each threat carries a baseline severity drawn from expert assessment. Every 24 hours, on the server, absolutely everything is reassessed: all seven live feeds are re-synced (USGS for global seismicity, GeoNet for New Zealand quakes and volcanic alert levels, NOAA SWPC for geomagnetic storms and GOES X-ray flares, NASA NeoWs for near-Earth objects, and NASA EONET for active severe storms) and an AI analyst re-scores every threat's baseline against current world conditions plus headline digests from official sources (CISA, WHO, USGS) — nothing on the board is left stale. Live feeds are blended into their threat at 55% weight. The clock maps the average of all threat scores onto minutes remaining before midnight.

This is an awareness tool, not a forecast. The only useful response to any of it is the boring one: water, food, power, comms, a plan and people who know it.