Seismic monitoring service Geonet will have staff working this weekend because of the past week's events.
Earthquake damage to State Highway 1,south of Kaikoura on November Photo: AFP
Thousands of aftershocks have struck since Monday morning's 7.8 earthquake.
View RNZ's full coverage of the earthquakes here
Geonet director Ken Gledhill this week called for more funding so the service could be staffed 24/7.
GeoNet director Ken Gledhill Photo: Supplied
He said it could not give tsunami warnings as quickly and accurately as he would like because it is not staffed overnight or on weekends.
But this weekend is different.
"We wouldn't normally have people here over the weekend. We need to because of the event situation - we would normally just have people on call."
Mr Gledhill said Geonet did not have the resources to keep doing that for long, and normal service would soon resume.
Civil Defence and Emergency Management director Sarah Stuart-Black said they were looking at a new 24-hour system.
She said there was currently a very effective emergency management system with duty teams - but they had already started a new project.
"What would it look like if we brought together agencies ot have a 24/7 watching, monitoring and warning capability across all hazards and risks.
"So that work has already kicked off before this event and we'll be looking to obviously take all of the lessons from this emergency into this project."
Ms Stuart-Black said it was about building on existing capability and making it even stronger.