surveying the damage

Its the "day after" the big one, although we are still experiencing aftershocks here that are powerful in their own right.

SHIT! Why is it that I we get aftershocks while I'm blogging?! As I was writing that previous sentence, another one rumbled through. It was pretty small, I'll check on the USGS website to see how powerful it was. Hold on... That was a 5.2

Its 10:15 am and Peru is starting to come to grips with the aftermath of the series of quakes that we've had over the last 18 hours. It was a relatively easy night for me, considering what others endured in this country. I got up this morning and did a survey in my apartment to see any damage in the daylight. There is a thin crack in the wall that starts at the ceiling and runs a jagged line down towards the floor that is about 1m (3 feet) long. There is some concrete that crumbled off from where the ceiling and walls come together - evidence of the shearing effect the building withstood. My building was put together pretty darn good and I'm very grateful to the guys who put it together for the wonderful job they did. Unfortunately I fear that the workers who did construct this building may have suffered a lot more than I did as they can't afford to live in places where the brick or concrete is reinforced.

After my tour of my apartment, Lupe (my maid) came in to work for the day. She described some of the damage in her neighborhood and it sounds rather extensive. Not as bad as pictures that I see on the internet of places like Ica, but still a considerable amount of damage. A few houses crumbled to the ground, several houses lost walls, roofs slid a meter or two from where they were placed, etc. It makes me realize just how lucky I was to not only survive such a big series of quakes but come out relatively unscathed.

I hopped on the internet to see what happened throughout the night and found out that the USGS upgraded our 7.7 (what I initially thought) up to an 8.0. The aftershocks were powerful in their own right - as you can see by the list below. (Sorry about the formatting issue - the table seems to have dropped down WAY on the page. Scroll down - I swear its there!)

Local Time	Magnitude	Distance from Lima
6:40 pm	8.0	150 km SSE
7:02 pm	5.6	145 km SSE
7:19 pm	5.8	255 km SSE
8:02 pm	5.8	145 km SSE
8:35 pm	5.4	225 km SSE
9:17 pm	5.0	205 km SSE
9:54 pm	5.0	165 km SSE
11:04 pm	5.6	175 km SSE
11:16 pm	5.0	140 km S
11:23 pm	5.2	215 km SE
12:16 am	6.3	260 km SSE
1:10 am	5.0	225 km S
1:43 am	4.5	155 km S
2:46 am	4.7	125 km S
4:02 am	4.9	240 km SSE
4:43 am	5.3	240 km SSE
6:35 am	6.0	270 km SSE
10:11 am	5.2	150 km SSE

*all data courtesy of the USGS website*

And in case you were wondering - yes, I woke for each and every one of those. It wasn't really a night's sleep as brief moments of rest in between waking up thinking I was going to need to rush out of my building. I slept with my clothes on, shoes next to my bed, and keys, wallet, and passport in my pockets (ya never know what you might need). I estimated that the majority of the energy stored in the tectonic plates was released during the 8.0 quake but you never know just how powerful the aftershocks are going to be and prepared for a worse case scenario of needing to flee the country with what was on my back. After seeing scenes of utter devastation in places like Pakistan and Iran, you never know what might happen when you live in a 3rd world country.

Am I justified for being perhaps a little paranoid and thinking the worst? If you've felt Mother Nature unleash her fury on you without any warning, than you know that I probably am justified. There's something that just makes you a little jumpy when the Earth shakes for 2 minutes and the structures you think are rock solid move back and forth by as much as a meter - so thanks for the latitude with my paranoia.

Its now 10:53 am and I've gotten through the emails from friends and family, all are glad to hear that I'm ok (as am I). Phones and cell reception are back in working order for Lima although I doubt it is for the area of Ica that was hit the hardest (and is still getting these wonderful aftershocks right under them!). With school being canceled by Alan Garcia (president of Peru), today is a rare day to get your nerves back to normal and check out the damages that have occurred to buildings - especially school buildings. I'll venture out here in a little bit to see how the rest of Miraflores faired, I'll update more after I go for a walk.

Thanks to one and all for reading and taking the time to send your best wishes. Its nice to know that you are thinking of me in this time of uncertainty. More news as I know it.