Bay of Plenty residents were among the 1.3million people that participated in the nationwide earthquake drill at 9.26am on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of people took cover under their desks and tables in a drill that urged people to drop, cover and hold.

Carpentry students at the BOP Polytechnic take cover in the nationwide ShakeOut drill.

Tauranga City Council call centre manager Di Hobson takes cover under her desk.

More than 38,000 people in the Western Bay of Plenty registered to participate in the drill including schools, businesses and councils.

At the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic more than 3000 teachers and students at both the Windermere and Bongard Campuses took part in this morning's drill.

Safety and Wellbeing Advisor at the Polytechnic, Gae Stevenson, has recently returned from the New Horizons Conference (Rebuilding Health and Safety on Solid Ground) in Christchurch.

'One thing that really hit home to me was speaker Peter Townsend [Chief Executive of the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce] saying ‘thank goodness for 4 September, without it there could have been many more deaths on 22 February'.

"It was almost as if 4 September was the practice run for the real thing – and that's what the rest of New Zealand needs.”

All of New Zealand changed forever on 22 February last year when Christchurch was devastated by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.

A total of 182 people lost their lives, 6500 were injured and many thousands were left homeless and without jobs.

Christchurch lost 1360 commercial buildings and 80 per cent of all businesses.

Gae says many of the Christchurch injuries could have been preventable if correct safety precautions had taken place.

Civil Defence Minister Chris Tremain says exercise ShakeOut was a huge success with a total of 1.3million people participating.

"That is an outstanding effort and I'd like to thank the citizens, schools, government organisations and businesses throughout the country who took the opportunity to get on board.

'This morning I took part in the drill with a group of children from Reignier School in Napier who were visiting Parliament. I was really impressed that they knew exactly what to do and the importance of having an emergency plan to get through.

"We know from the Canterbury earthquakes that those who were well prepared were able to cope better."