Bomb Threats

Kia ora,

Well yesterday bomb threats were the name of the day with one in Auckland & one in Christchurch.

The one in Auckland ended up with one embarrassed tennis fan who had left their bag sitting at seat for a period. But this follows NZ mindset. People just don't think about it. The world has changed & people need to be aware of where they place & leave their gear. Even just for basic security of your personal belongings at any sports event or event fullstop you need to either have them with you or having someone look after them.

Unlike a fire drill, a bomb threat drill requires people to take all their belongings with them.

With both threats the distance the cordon goes out depends on a lot of variables, but one thing that has to be considered in a built up area is the area likely to be affected by an explosion can be quite different than those in set explosive safety requirements.

For example when applying their set standards used in Northern Ireland the British soon realized that those requirements in Hong Kong could require the movement of up to 48,000 people.

What has all this to do with basic security. It should be a drill all security personel know, but in NZ very few do. To ensure that resources are not tied up by continous bomb threats the security person on the ground needs to know how to investigate any claims in the first instance before taking it higher.

That is actually how the military deal with it. The majority of suspicious objects or bomb threats are first checked by troops on the ground. This ensures resources are used when threat is more likely to be true.