Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Sounds like we'll be getting aftershocks 'til the cows come home. They could carry on for two years, say scientists.

The aftershocks, that is. Not the cows.

The cows haven't turned up. An even bigger quake might happen too, potentially triggering a tsunami bigger than the 30cm one that rolled in last Friday.

Or it might not. That's the cool thing about science; we can never be sure.

Mother Nature provided us with an impromptu tsunami drill last week, after the large quake off the East Coast. While only a tiddler of a tsunami resulted, it still provided East Coast communities with a dry-run rehearsal we should learn from, for future threats.

Not feeling the love

Unfortunately the text alert process from Civil Defence still seems about effective as a love poem from Colin Craig. Some people received the text an hour after the tsunami wave hit our shores.

Equally disappointing was performance of radio stations. CD urges citizens to listen, but many of the stations on their recommended list carried no tsunami information at all.

Ironically the 'Coast” station reportedly had no advice on the state of the coast, according to a reliable source. We've heard no good reports from anyone who tuned into radio stations, except those listening to More FM – which seemed to be the only station interrupting pre-recorded or automated programmes to provide any useful CD information to the public.

Better options

Far better options were SunLive and television. SunLive had the first news of the quake, up and ready within minutes of the big sways at 4.37am, closely followed by breaking news alerts on the tsunami warning and regular updates.

Unlike the sporadic radio coverage, the information stayed up for viewing when the reader wanted to see it, not having to wait and listen. TV1 and TV3 also carried scrolling headlines and regular updates through the morning.

Social media was awash with observations and speculation, as usual. A word of warning here, however: social media cannot always be trusted to be accurate, and there are plenty of cases of wrong information and sheer speculation being spread quickly and un-checked.

In an emergency situation, we advise making sure the information you act on is from a reliable source. Some of the best social media posts were actually copies of bonafide news organisation reports, such as links to SunLive and television reports.

Staying safe

Whatever, best to be prepared, in case there is a serious tsunami. Keep yourself safe. Unlike the people sitting a bus shelter outside the Auckland hospital this week, near the emergency department. You'd think that would be one of the safest places in the world? Not so for the three people who were injured by a crashing ambulance.

Cow Hide

Back to the cows. Thanks for the squillions of entries in the Rogers Rabbits 'Cow Hide” game.

Astute readers may remember that in last week's column we discussed the disappearance of 500 cows and ruminated on the possible hiding places for them.
As a result, a number of cows were strategically placed through the pages of The Weekend Sun so you cow-spotting sleuths could hone your bovine detection skills.

At this point we must apologise to anyone who unexpectedly ended up with a farm beast in their photo, including the Elm Tree Early Learning Centre in Mission Street – who were a bit perplexed to find a Friesian grazing on their new front lawn – and the Meditation and Discussion group, who had a milker show up in their What's On listing.
Of the several hundred entries, Pete Kelly of Te Puna was one of a few who successfully found all 14 cows. In fact, Pete said there were 16, if we counted the cow in the vet ad and the one in the horoscopes under Taurus. (Although Taurus is a boy cow, therefore technically his entry is bull.)

Letitia also scored a perfect 14, but is disallowed as she's Sun Media staff.

Ivan Hamilton came up with a fairly optimistic count of 500, but we suspect he was guessing. Odd that is the same number of cows missing from Ashburton, so it was clever guess. He wins a consolation prize of a Sun Media beanie, as a reward for optimism.

The rest of the herd who had nearly 14 cows went into a draw and we drafted out Lyn Beamsley. Congratulations to our champion herders Pete and Lyn; your Sun prize packs are on the way.

Due to the popularity of the Cow Hide game, we're going to regularly run similar competitions in the Sun. Keep your eyes peeled and your wrangling skills sharp!

We love your letters

This week's game: we're feeling sorry for Colin Craig and his unrequited love poems. Hidden through today's paper are six Colin love-hearts. Find them, email us at the Sun listing the six pages that contain the hearts, (not counting this one) and go in the draw for the goodies.

Feel free to write a short piece responding to Colin's forlorn love messages; the best will not only win the hearts and minds of readers, but a little prize as well!

Send entries to editorials@thesun.co.nz, with 'Lost Love” in the subject line.



brian@thesun.co.nz