Quake, Rattle and Roll

We have experienced typhoon season, but earthquake season? The Lord forbid. You’ve probably heard this contrast between typhoons vs earthquakes. Typhoons come after weather forecast. Earthquakes shake all of a sudden, without warning. By the time a tropical cyclone warning signal no. 3 typhoon comes, we would have prepared with food and supplies, boarded roof and windows, safe inside our houses. By the time a magnitude 7 earthquake shakes and rattles, we would have been caught unaware inside our workplaces or in the middle of the road. There’s sunshine after storms. After earthquakes, there are aftershocks. There could be many aftershocks. A really bad typhoon leaves you a lot of mess to clean up, and a roof to repair. A really bad earthquake leaves you with a shelter with compromised structural integrity. Both are bad, but a typhoon’s effects are slightly less bad.

They tell us to prepare a go bag. I just wonder, in a severely strong earthquake, are we to run out of the house or workplace carrying that go bag? Go where? Well, somewhere safe, of course. But where is certainly safe? I mean, which place is surely safe? Are affected residents expected to run to the barangay covered court? Are we expected to run to the nearest public school or barangay hall? How are we sure that those would be safe places after an earthquake? For that matter, is it safe to run to some evacuation area after an earthquake? At such time, we would not really know which place is really safe. I suppose, it would be safe to slowly walk to the middle of the road, away from possibly falling debris from structures. But, wouldn’t we get in the way of rushing ambulances, fire trucks or police cars which would rush to rescue victims? In that case, we would have to set ourselves aside to the sidewalk, closer to the houses or buildings which could drop debris. So, would it be better for us to just stay put and wait for the rescue personnel to assist us intelligently and safely? In this case, what’s the go bag for?

Once, I heard a government employee who coordinated an earthquake drill commented that no matter how much we prepare, how successful drills may be, when the real thing comes, we’ll all be overcome with panic that all the preparations and drills would turn to naught. If a personnel who coordinates disaster and risk reduction thinks this way, how serious do the common folk take earthquake preparedness?

Since we’re now talking about earthquake drills, they tell us to duck, cover and hold. Okay, ducking would be easy. We just drop and squat on the ground. Let’s try to cover. Do we cover our heads with our hands? What good would that do when the ground shakes? What does that do under falling debris? Would that not hurt both our heads and hands if something drops? They tell us to hold. Hold on to what? Hold on to whatever? Do we hold on to feet of tables, chairs or any other available furniture? Are those secure to hold on to? Realistically, in many cases, there would be nothing sturdy to hold on to. When we were younger, they taught us to go under furniture – a chair or table, that is if we could manage to fit our ever expanding physical bodies under some chair or table. However, a Phivolcs researcher who our Soc Sci class met and invited to be our resource speaker cast doubt on the safety of such purported precautionary measure. According to him, if a person goes under some furniture, there would be a probable chance that the person or persons get trapped if a wall, ceiling, roof or some structure collapses over that chair or table. That makes sense.

Don’t you think the timing is coincidental? While the whole nation is being rocked with the exposure of stink of massive corruption on infrastructure projects, here comes a natural calamity, one that we cannot really prepare for, to test the integrity of the structures that had been built. It’s like the earth itself is joining in the expose, taunting, ‘let’s see which of these edifices that they erected don’t live up to expected stability. Then, next time, all these people responsible for building structures would be scrambling to do the good job that they should be doing, and not be getting away with the loot they can plunder.

Revelation 11:13: “And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”