Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Everyone is talking about the tremors

Everyone is talking about the tremors. No, not this one.



I'm talking about the tremors that were felt in most parts of Singapore yesterday because of the Sumatra earthquake.


(Photo taken by Kong Ping)

The local blogosphere was full of activity yesterday (not since Tammy, ha!) with bloggers, who most of them had never felt a tremor or an earthquake before in their life, busy writing their experiences of the tremors. Here are some interesting reads.

KeithyBeefy: We were having our GP lessons. I was lying down on my table and jessica was presenting when unexpectantly, i felt my body move. I quickly dismissed it as me getting giddy but Marcus who was sitting beside me, was swift to accuse me of moving his table! Huiping was prompt start a series of accusations against Audrey, sitting adjacent to her, of pushing her. Everyone looked puzzled and Miss Lye our GP teacher confirmed the incident with neighbouring classes. Then came the principal's announcement to assemble at the tracks. Our class walked calmly down until a teacher shouted to us "This is not a fire-drill!! Run!!".

Our Precious Moments: it all started back at the toilet. i was then standing in front of the mirror looking at my ever messy hair and suddenly i felt giddy. it came to me as no surprise as i wearing heels (and i cant balance on them). however the next min sok asked, "waiyin, did u feel something?" it was then i knew something was not quite right. later back in office, my colleague told me that she knew something was wrong when she saw her monitor swaying.

Pigolist: Everyone began to carry their bags, notebooks! & proceed to the main door. I grabbed my bag & WangWang & followed. Then i saw my other colleague who only came out w her bag… I yelled at her!!! n told her to go grab Ah Hum, the timid hamster. She quickly ran back to get him, while i emptied a tuperware for her to hold the hammy. *quilty* we forgot Sleepy… Ehem i thought the other guy in charge of Sleepy had brought him along.. Luckily the building din collapse… If not i’ll b guilty for the rest of my life.

HDBHomeMaker: We both look at each other without speaking and thought that could the drums vibration from the lion dance be so strong that the ground shoke (we lived on the 7th floor). The tremors was quite strong and the next thing came to my mind was earthquake in Indonesia. I told my husband and he taught so too and at the same time I look at the fish tank. Saw the water moving and it lasted about 6secs.

Schizofenic: The 1st time, I didn't feel it. It was only when the kindergarten teacher came running into the office saying the building is shaking and the kids were being evacuated... I thought it was our old building that was going to collapse. Apparently the people in Parkway also evacuated. The kids weren't traumatised, I think they looked quite happy! So after staying downstairs for about 45mins, the kids were sent back and we went for lunch.

Jaggedice: We felt the earthquake tremors during the test. At first I thought someone was kicking my chair and so my table was swaying, so I adjusted my chair. Quite a few people thought someone was kicking their chair/table or something like that. But when the swaying didn’t go away, I don’t think I was the only one who lost concentration and felt dizzy. I’m not sure if the tremor we felt was the first or second wave.

Cheaterbug17
: Never have i encountered something so scary... You could literally feel the building swaying left to right. For that very moment, i thought that one wrong move by anyone would make the building collapse because the feeling of imbalance seemed that since it was swaying from left to right, too much weight on either side would cause it to tumble.

Wah Zan: For a moment, I thought I was dizzy. The screen shook and I was a bit unbalanced. The 2nd thought was that my colleague sitting besides me was shaking my chair or using his eraser vigorously and I was about to scold him. Well, it was only when I felt the tremors flowing through my feet that I realised that I was experiencing the shocks of a distant earthquake.I stood up and saw that all my colleagues were looking around and not knowing what's going on. The fact sunk in soon and we were all told to evacuate the building.

Tisuepaperr: Until 20min to the end of the lesson an announcement was made over the PA system for ALL students in classrooms and LTs to evacuate onto the track. WOAH! seriously, i was pretty excited at first cos this is the first time we're evacuating due to earthquake tremors rather than FIREDRILL. hehe. so yeah, went onto the track for about 5min then got dismissed back to class. DAMN. everything was fine until break time, after i bought my chicken cutlet. suddenly, everything started to sway. the ground was unstable, lights in the cafe were swaying. this time everyone automatically started walking to the track. and we stood on the field cos this is a Level Three tremors which EVERYONE is suppose to be outdoors. so yeah, after standing for about 5min we sat down at the semi-d area. and shortly after that, they announced that NO MORE lessons for the day!

JaymsQueen: The thing I hate is, we have no proper procedure on evacuation. There's no announcement on the PA system from the building's management. No absolute instructions whatsoever!! Even the security guards do not know what to advise us. The funny thing is, when we were back at the office, a building maintenance man came over to inspect the building. Make one full round of our office and he left. NO information was given to us.

Ling's Life: I was just doing my own work and looking forward to lunch when suddenly i felt a bit giddy. everything around me started to move, i felt the ground shake and i thought i was going to faint. i thought something was wrong with me. My chair under me was shaking. the computer screen was shaking. My water bottle was trembling on the table. the picture on the wall was trembling too. i mean what the heck was happening? and then suddenly my big boss came out of her room and said "Hey the building is shaking!" people started to grab their wallets and handphones. my mind went numb and i just followed suit. we evacuated the building.

Previously: I felt my first earthquake today!

1 comment:

gie_chloe said...

Am I the ONLY one who didn't feel a thing?

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