The NSW SES inadvertently triggered a panic on Facebook when it publicised a new tsunami warning map that users mistakenly thought was a warning for this weekend.

Rain bucketing down across NSW prompted a near hysterical reaction to new tsunami evacuation maps that were published on Friday.

Within an hour of posting its new maps, the NSW State Emergency Services (SES) updated its Facebook page to address fears and panic.

"Important: This is not a tsunami warning," it wrote in capital letters.

SES Sydney's harbourside suburbs would be effected by a tsunami, according to tsunamisafe.com.au.

By Saturday, the SES maps had been shared nearly 6000 times on Facebook, liked and disliked 2400 times by many readers - many of whom used Facebook's emoticons for unhappy and scared - and attracted nearly 4000 comments.

The evacuation maps cover the entire NSW coast. They highlight in red the areas where residents would - in the one-in-10,000 year chance of a serious tsunami - be required to seek shelter and move to higher ground of at least 10 metres or evacuate to a safer zone.

They show those areas that lie under 10m above sea level, are 1km or less inland and are 10km up an estuary. Those people who live in the red zone, including many Sydneysiders with nice harbour views, would be asked to seek shelter.



The SES stressed that the maps didn't show areas that would be inundated in the event of a tsunami, very likely a much smaller area.



"They represent the areas considered most at risk from modelling of potential tsunami and effects observed elsewhere," it said on its Facebook page.



The maps represented the worst-case scenario, said SES spokesman, Phil Campbell.



Responses on Facebook suggested that some members of the public had heard the weather forecasts for continuing heavy rain, seen the tsunami maps, and put two and two together to think a tsunami was on its way: "OMG are you serious?" and "Holy Moly!!!! Stay Safe!!!". Others feared for the safety of friends and family travelling in these regions.

One woman asked if there was a reason it was posting the map "with a storm coming". Another asked why it has posted the maps "right now when we are expecting a big rain event here in the next few days. I feel a LITTLE worried," wrote a woman called Narelle Lackenby.

Another woman, Carli Drewe, asked if rain caused tsunamis.

The answer is no.

Facebook/SES NSW SES' new evacuation maps scared some people on Facebook.

Campbell said the launch on Friday had been planned for months, and it was unfortunate that the developing bad weather situation coincided with their release.

"We are apologetic to those people who may have linked the two," he said.

The maps had been designed to grab attention, and prompt discussion and draw attention to the need for planning for this very unlikely event.

"The risk of a tsunami was very low, yet the consequences are very high," he said.

According to the SES' tsunami safe page, NSW has a documented history of tsunami. Most have been relatively small and generally less than one metre on the tide gauge records.

Around every six years, NSW feels the effect of a marine-based tsunami.

Since 2007, four tsunamis originating from earthquakes off the Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Chile and Japan, have affected Sydney. The 1960 Chilean tsunami was the largest recorded on the NSW coast in recent history, causing about £24 million (NZD$50 million) of damage.

This marine-based tsunami - which took 17 hours to reach Australia - sunk a coal barge, boats were wrenched from their moorings, water came ashore near Batemans Bay on NSW's south coast, and the effects were felt on waterways as far north as Windsor in Sydney's north-west.

"About every six years you get a marine tsunami, sometimes you don't notice them, but sometimes you get the ones that rip boats from their moorings," said Campbell.