I was sitting in the teachers' lounge Friday before band class and suddenly I felt dizzy. My feet were resting on the bottom of the computer desk and I realized the desk was moving too.
"Joanna! Do you feel that?" I called to someone to see if it was just me feeling dizzy or if my dizziness was due to the fact that the whole earth was moving under me.
"Yeah, I see the flowers moving. We're having an earthquake," Joanna validated my hypothesis.
I am from Nebraska, so when something is happening like that I have not been trained to think "Hmm, maybe it is an earthquake." I've even lived in L.A., California, and even there I never experienced an earthquake.
Last February I had my first one when I also felt dizzy. That taught me that when I feel dizzy one possibility other than sickness is an earthquake.
Sure enough I found this report on the internet about the earthquake. Of course here where we live was not the epicenter. Don't worry, we are all okay. (P.S. The title to this entry is taken from the title to the following article)
MANILA, Nov. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- A magnitude 5.6 earthquake rocked General Santos City in southern Philippines around 1:30 p.m. (0536GMT) local time Friday but no damage was reported, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.
Ferdinand Taglucop, Phivolcs science analyst in Southern Mindanao, said the tremor's epicenter was traced at 115 kilometers southeast of General Santos City and had a depth of 15 kilometers.
It was tectonic in origin, he said. It was felt at intensity 2 in Davao City, the biggest city in Mindanao.
The Hong Kong Observatory reported earlier that an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hit sea waters south of the Philippines at 13:36 p.m. (0536 GMT) on Friday.
According to the Hong Kong Observatory, the epicenter of the quake was initially determined to be 5.9 north latitude, 126.4 east longitude, about 160 kilometers south-southeast of Davao, Mindanao Island. Enditem
4 comments:
Do you mind if I double post? Too late, I'm doing it anyway, ha ha.
First of all, a question.
How is the infrastructure in the Philippines for earthquakes? I know that Japan gets hit a lot, but unless it a serious quake nobody worries much. All the buildings are built to be as earthquake proof as possible. Is there this kind of security, or is every earthquake there a little bit more risky?
And now a funny story.
A guy in the band was talking about being stationed in LA during the big earthquake during the world series (when was that). He said he was driving around with his family when it hit and he just assumed that it was his old car acting up. Even when everything was bouncing around and the traffic lights were swinging all over the place he never stopped thinking it was anything except his car.
He pulled into a grocery store parking lot to fix what he thought was a flat or something, but was blocked by "some idiot" parked in the middle of the street. By the time he was getting out of his car, the earthquake had stopped, but now everyone was running out of the store. Puzzled, he asked one of the people, "what's going on?"
The response came as something to the effect of "are you kidding?" It was only after the fact when he thought back through the sequence of events that he realized what he had been through, and then he started to panic.
I hope I did the story justice. The guy that told it is a very funny fellow and hearing live would be much better of course.
Sam, I have that question, too, about the plates for the Philippines. I know they even have what is called the "Philippine plate" that is really close to Japan. I tried to find a map...I hope it is not risky but I am new to this whole thing. Anyone else want to answer the question??
I loved your story. You did get a laugh from me! I think it was 1991? Anyone? Wow, I have a lot to learn!
I liked your entry "BLogging during earthquake". Thanks for double blogging. Have a great (safe) day!
How about I double-post?
Here's something interesting I read on the internet about Japan. Three plates meet in Japan. Crazy!
"Japan lies on the cusp of the Pacific-Philippine-Eurasian triple plate junction, where the complex interactions of three tectonic plates is unpredictable and loaded with potential activity."
Post a Comment