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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

small quakes 6.9

it was a normal day for normal employees like me. i came to office a little past 8:30. late from my everyday morning dose of nihongo lessons. once again, we breathed in and out. and went on with the class. but just before noon came, something out of the ordinary happened. EARTHQUAKE!!!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... the building was still shaking. we went out of the room to meet our other colleagues also wondering what on earth is happening. my first instinct told me to find somewhere safe. and i saw the building pillar. i went near it and dragged a colleague with me only to find out that an a/c unit is directly above us. this place is surely not safe. and then the ground stopped shaking.

we quickly ran down the emergency exit. in no time from the 7th floor we reached the bottom only to find out that the door leading outside the building is locked. wow! this is the best feeling of my life. the threads of sanity i strongly held on slowly broke. why on earth is the emergency exit door locked? i didn't panic from the actual quake but a little claustrophobia got into me this time. we immediately alighted 2 floors back up and took another exit.

slowly, people got out of the building and stories of shock filled the air. everyone had a story to tell. and the worst part, phone lines broke. it only came back around 15 minutes later. i normally skip lunch but i took one this time thinking that a much needed energy would be helpful should there be an aftershock.

i was a little disappointed to hear no company official statement. other companies in that same building went home early than the usual. it was business as usual for ours. the earthquake was 6.9 with kilometers offshore negros as it's epicenter.

our japanese teacher then shared that during earthquakes, the first thing to do is to hide under the table and stay under until the quake stops. i immediately replied, there is only one table in our training room. surely, five people won't fit under it. and besides, cebu is not tokyo. in tokyo everything, buildings and people included, are earthquake proof. in cebu, we have no proof that buildings will remain standing after withstanding quakes. now we know it will but we didn't know before.

hours later, news of an impending tsunami came. the water in downtown area rose, they said. and this caused panic. just search for videos in youtube to find more. it must have been a carnival out there. but thinking back now, no one can blame these people. first, others haven't heard of the news of where the epicenter was. if they did, then mostly likely they would know that a tsunami in the city is impossible. second, this is the first big quake in cebu. most people don't even know what epicenter means. not knowing anything is scary and that makes one vulnerable to believe what others say. third, it was already a mob out there. when a huge number of people run towards you, won't you run with them as well? lastly, news of japan and new zealand is still quite fresh in the people's minds. you just can't blame them for acting that way. these made me conclude that cebu is not ready for earthquakes yet.

later around 6, as we were having a video conference with our japan counterparts, came a big aftershock. but i didn't even realize it until our boss himself alerted about it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... our boss finally stopped the conference and told everyone to get out of the building. what a day it was. i went home with stories to share.

aftershocks still came days after but the trauma of the first is incomparable. i can't be more thankful that we were safe.

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