> Something like THAT makes it into the American news ??? I remember having read it in the local part of our Aachen newspaper, just a small funny anecdote. The report about a minor earthquake in the Aachen vicinity, of level 4 on the Richter scale, was at least 10 times in size, despite only rattling some windows and grandmothers.

The New Zealand news didn't report either Aachen incident, but I bet you *anything* it's only because we currently have a nice juicy government scandal to fill up the papers. Depressingly, the whorehouse story would definitely be reported here faster than the earthquake one. People love that kind of catty trivia. Ick.

Speaking of earthquakes, the one in Peru resulted in a tsunami on the coast of the South Island here. It was ... wait for it ... 20 centimetres high. Yes, you *can* have tiny tsunamis.

Brunnen-"the one that reached Auckland was less than 10cm high. There was a tsunami in my own town and I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE! How unexciting..."G