Today I have been frightened, scared, shocked, terrified even. I have experienced a very strong earth tremor that shook the foundations of our rented house like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
I woke up feeling sleepy after a disturbed night of thunder, lightning, heavy rain and high winds. I did not feel like going to work, but I went to the shop anyway. It was still early and only a few people about. After meeting my builder and Raju and Siri to discuss (ironically) the pillar construction of my house, I decided that there was nothing for me to do today in the mood I was in, tired and hungry. So I asked Dil to look after the shop, said he could close at 12 o’clock, and returned home and bought some eggs, potatoes and baked beans to cook my breakfast.
After breakfast I was lying on my bed reading a book called “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. It was quiet outside. Suddenly there was a clattering noise and the room began to shake. I thought at first it was the vibrations from one of the heavy trucks or tourist buses that pass our house quite frequently, but this vibration continued – the floor seemed to be vibrating up and down violently, it seemed like the motion of a ship heading out of harbor into a choppy sea, but I then heard the creaking of the structural pillars and the rumblings from the depths of the foundations of our large house. I am on the second floor of a three storied, substantial house. It has a large area of marble stone staircases and porches, and the marble slabs seemed to be moving up and down.
There seemed to be a synchronous reverberation and resonation, as if the joints of the building were setting up more vibrations continually.
All this was in a matter of a few seconds. My surprise quickly turned to panic as I went out onto the porch and saw the building actually shake and sway, I heard more creaking and vibrations and thought – “this is dangerous, this happening NOW, I must get out of this building”. One of the terrifying things was that one suddenly had no idea what would happen next – how long was this going to go on for? Was the ground about to open up and swallow me? Was the entire building going to collapse any second?
I had clutched my book to me but left everything else in my bedroom, even my wallet and keys, as I fled downstairs. I met my neighbor who had been sleeping, and together we rushed out into the road. On the way down the stairs, I noticed my wife Kali and her sister and family standing in their back yard in a little group, calling out to me to leave. We must have looked like rats scuttling out of a ship before it sank. I stood in the road talking to my neighbor and we kept saying “Oh my God, Oh My God” and we continued to feel the ground shake, and clattering noises from neighbouring concrete foundation buildings (like Parkside Hotel). It was a very real sense of calamity and disaster, I did not know how long this was going to last, but the actual earth shake could not have lasted more than 2 minutes. I kept on thinking – What about Kathmandu? What was happening there? The aftershocks continued intermittently, as I knew they would, as I had read many times about the aftershocks one should expect after a major earthquake or tremor.
As I write I am experiencing another shock, swaying floors and buildings, it is extremely unsettling and makes one think the safest place is out in the open. You feel as if the building could collapse and you could be crushed by all the tons of concrete and steel floors, walls and beams. I do not feel safe in here. The shallow foundations of the traditional local Tharu buildings of timber, straw thatch and mud and wattle walls are much lighter and more buoyant than the heavy concrete, and I can see why there would be relatively little damage in these buildings apart from some mud falling off the walls. But in 120 seconds my belief in the solidity and security of the very earth on which we stand has been shaken to its core, and I continue to feel nervous and frightened. One realizes how powerful are the natural forces of the world, how vulnerable, puny and powerless we are in the face of them, and therefore really how fundamentally insecure we are in living in this world.
C.Tim Taylor 25 April 2015
Oh my God. I can not imagine what that must be like, but your description here helps me to imagine what it must be like. Like a ship leaving a harbour into a choppy sea.