Earthquake!

Maybe we were getting a little too cocky about Cebu never getting hit with the typhoons that plague the Manila and Mindanao areas, but on Tuesday morning at about 8:00am we got a surprise in the form of a 7.2 earthquake centered in Bohol, a neighbouring island famous for its Tarsier sanctuary and the  Chocolate Hills.  Tuesday was a statutory holiday in the Philippines and it's thought that this meant there were fewer injuries, but tragically over 140 people have died and hundreds were injured during the quake, mostly in Bohol.

Nena and I were at home in the condo when the quake hit and it was terrifying.  I was on Skype with John when I felt the slight rumble that I normally associate with a heavy truck going by outside.  Then I realized that heavy trucks don't make our building tremble but earthquakes do!  I told John I'd better go, and then we just hung on until it stopped, grabbed a key and ran out the door to join everyone else who was escaping the building.  We're only on the 3rd floor and I'm very grateful for two reasons - it's quick to take the stairs out and the lower floors didn't sway nearly as much as the higher floors did.  We spent about two hours outside while the maintenance people checked the building then we were let back in.

We are very lucky that our building has a generator that kicks in as soon as the main power goes out, so while most people didn't have power for the rest of the day, we did.  Also, the Internet stayed up  and running the whole time, which I was very impressed by.

Later in the day, we were evacuated again after a particularly strong aftershock, but that was the extent of it for us.  No one in the building was injured and the building itself handled the disturbance without any problem.  Others were not nearly so lucky.  Many buildings -- hospitals, schools, churches, homes and malls -- were severely damaged.  In Cebu, the Santo Niño de Cebu Basilica, one of the main tourist attractions, was badly damaged.  And on Bohol, the roof of the Church of San Pedro in Loboc collapsed.  It is very upsetting for a strongly Catholic country to have these two significant churches, as well as others, badly damaged after they've stood firm for over 400 years.

Aftershocks are really quite disturbing, especially for the first couple of days when they are still quite strong and the shock of the earthquake itself is still so close.  I can't imagine how awful they must be for families that have lost their homes or loved ones.  Each tremor makes you stop, tense and wait to see if it will get stronger or stop.  I am getting used to them and they're quite infrequent by now -  4 days later - but there was another one as I was writing this.  

None of the people in the company or their families were hurt, and they were all able to stay in their homes.  Our office building is an older building and it didn't fare quite so well, so we've been working from home all this week.  As of now, the water is back on and the building has been inspected and declared safe, so we'll be back in there on Monday.  It's not clear if the air conditioning is working 100% yet but we'll find out.  

There is a small silver lining for me from this.  I've been fearful of the "big one" happening for years and now I know that well-built buildings can withstand a truly incredible amount of shaking without damage.  That's reassuring.  And I've also done some research of earthquake preparedness and will be much better prepared, wherever I am, next time!