big fuckin' earthquake!

Well, here's something that I don't write about very much - the way the Earth moves under my feet. Literally. And it was a big honkin' earthquake at that, my biggest ever. Having a 7.7 magnitude earthquake roll through while you're eating dinner can sure change how your night goes. (an aftershock just hit while I was writing that last sentence)

The time is currently 7:20 pm local time. My land line and cell phone are both dead but amazingly my internet connection is still working. Its been an eventful last hour. At 6:40 pm local time, the earthquake started to shake the ground beneath my feet. I was reading some worthless article on the internet and eating dinner at the time. At first it was a gentle swaying from side to side, progressing more and more as the seconds passed. Eventually it got to the point where I started to get worried, the world was really shaking in a big way and I was sitting at my computer doing nothing about it.

The time is now 7:52 and I'm not normally a person who types slowly but I've been a little preoccupied with contacting others and seeing how my friends are doing. So here's how things happened next.

As the shaking got more and more violent, I decided that sitting at my computer wasn't the best place to be. I got up and stood in the doorway, thinking that it really wasn't the safest place despite what I remembered from living in California. I noted how the apartment building was REALLY shaking and I felt extremely vulnerable (AFTERSHOCK NOW!!!) while standing in the doorway.

I could hear from outside the breaking of glass from other buildings and car alarms going off. While standing in the doorway, I heard a loud pop and the saw a blue glow emanating from my living room window - a transformer on the street had succumb to the quake. But as I stood there, the shaking got more and more intense. Doors were swinging back and forth while the water I was drinking (next to my computer) was sloshing up and out of the glass. I went and grabbed the water - I didn't want it to spill on the computer - and returned to the protective cover of my doorway.

I stood there for what seemed like forever, what I now estimate to be about 90 seconds. I don't know if my approximation of time is correct, for all I know it could have only been half of that but it did feel like forever. All I did know is that the world was moving quite a bit and I was on one heck of a rollercoaster ride.

Its now 8:22 and I've settled down a little bit - answering a few phone calls on Skype from friends and family in the US but still no phone connection (land line or cell) to speak of. I wonder how long it will take to reestablish those lines of communication. In any case, I can at least tell my family and friends that I'm ok and that my building hasn't sustained any noticeable damage.

After the initial earthquake was over, I grabbed my phones and tried to start calling fellow expats to see how they were doing. I was amazed that my internet connection was still up so I got online and went to the USGS website to see how big it was. Initial reporting said that it was a 7.7 magnitude quake that originated about 160 km (100 miles) from Lima and fairly shallow - 10 km (6 miles).


Initially CNN originally reported that there were 3 earthquakes, a 7.7 and two 7.5s, but that has been since cleared up as a computer glitch at the USGS. Good thing they came out and amended that because I don't remember feeling 3 separate earthquakes, I'd hate to think that I'd lost my mind during the rumbling. ;-) As the night has progressed, there have been a few aftershocks to grace my evening - as you could tell by when I noted them during my entry. I went through and checked about them on the USGS website and they list the aftershocks as 5.9 and 5.8. Hopefully the worst of the evening is behind me and I can calm my nerves for a somewhat normal night's sleep.

Which brings me to now - 8:40 pm, exactly two hours after the initial rocking of my world. Its reminded me of just how exciting life can be - even when you aren't really wanting it to be. I know that being an expat has a certain sense of adventure to it, tonight is just another part of that adventure... right?