World governments admitted they were ‘baffled’ last night after the New Zealand government issued a ‘fully incomprehensible’ message about an ‘urthquike’.

‘We just don’t know what they are on about,’ said Foreign Secretary William Hague. ‘There’s something in there about ‘unternetional ide’, but we’re not sure if that’s some kind of soft drink or maybe a chemical or something.’

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered State Department translators to work round-the-clock on deciphering the garbled message. ‘Our best guess is that their second city, which we understand is called ‘Chroistchairch’, has suffered an infestation of rodents called ‘eftershucks’, so we’re sending fifty tons of mousetraps to see if that’s what they’re after.’

Julia Gillard, the newly-reelected prime minister of New Zealand’s English-speaking neighbour Australia, welcomed the US response. ‘She said it was ‘terliddle terlate yabladdy drongos’, Mrs Clinton said. ‘My translators tell me that means ‘God bless America.’