My heart bleeds for the thousands of fellowmen in this world who have lost their lives and those who been injured, lost their loved ones, and have been through this horrific tragedy in the recent earthquake that hit Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The first earthquake that I have recollection of going through was in the early 1960's when I was studying at St. Stephen's College, Delhi.
I was sitting at a table playing chess with a friend in the Student's Common Room.
I saw the chess pieces and the chess board swaying in front of me. As I was in a winning position, I thought my friend was trying to upset the board. But, almost instantly, I felt my chair being moved around. Nobody said anything. About 10 of us in the room at that time sat their petrified, unable to move, except of being rocked around by the earth.
When we finally got the courage to run out of the building, the earthquake was over.
It was indeed a shock, but as the intensity was only in the order of 3 on the Richter Scale, we joked about it at dinner, and thought no more about it. It had not been one of the major earthquakes of the region.
After that, I have been through several minor quakes. I was able to recognise the shaking of earth as being part of an earthquake and take necessary action as either get under a table or bed or run into an open space.
That is, I conquered the biggest killer of all in earthquakes, "panic".
The next earthquake that really shook me to the core is described best in the book written by Annikki in Chapter 13 of her book "...for the hour of his judgement is come:..."
When I had reached this far in my thinking of what the Bible says in the Revelations, a strange silence descended on the court room. Suddenly I heard a sound like that of thunder when it is right overhead, but I realised immediately that this noise seemed to be coming from below. The sound was as though the very foundations of the earth were being scraped together. Without a moment's hesitation, I said loudly for all to hear "Earthquake".
I had never experienced anything like this before and did not know that such a sound could come from below the ground but it came to me immediately that this is what it was - an earthquake. This alarmed everybody and they were waiting for what would happen next. The awesome, dreadful rumbling sound continued and the earth started to move. The roaring sound continued and the earth started moving. Now I was not afraid. The people in the room were. I was sitting and watching them as if it were a film. The building started moving back and forth. People were running, grabbing what was theirs. Policemen snatched their motorcycle helmets, lawyers their briefcases and whatever else was important to them. They were running as fast as they could. We were sitting there and felt no need to get out.
Suddenly I saw Mika and Joanna hurriedly say something to each other and together they disappeared. Thinking about them and what may happen to them in such panic where people run blindly not knowing where, I got up and tried to walk. It was like a ship in a storm. I did not get very far. I managed only a few steps. I was trying to see where the children were to bring them back inside. I tried to walk and keep my balance, just watching the floor and my feet, when I had to stop, hardly able to stand. I reached a few feet from my bench and stood with my feet apart to steady myself. From there I called to the children, asking them to come back. Luckily they had not gone down the stairs but had only been hidden from our view behind the door. First one came in followed by the other. I told them to come and sit down.
In the meantime, Jacob seeing the people in panic, shouted "Don't run." Some people stopped. Soon after, the tremor stopped as well. We were all now sitting. We could not know whether it had stopped or would start again. We did not know what would happen. We calmed the children and told them not to be afraid.
One by one the people started coming back into the room. There was a lawyer who came from the lower floor and described what had happened there: how people had run out of all the court rooms and downstairs, a big crack had appeared on the wall of the building. It took some time before things settled and to know whether the court could continue with hearings.
This episode took place in a multistorey building. We were seated on the 4th or 5th floor. Although the strength of the earthquake was later reported as being on 4 on the Richter scale, the effect on all around us and on us was dramatic enough never to forget that incident.
When we came to Finland, Annikki and I identified several instances of earthquakes in our town, Oulu. However, the Finnish authorities had a policy that was not to cause fear among the people and they always had a "sensible" explanation for the tremors.
In one instance in 1984, when I was sitting in the local library, I felt a strong tremor. I knew it was an earthquake. I made a mental note of the time.
When I reached home, several kilometres away, even before I could ask Annikki, she asked me whether I had felt the tremors at exactly the same minute!
The explanation put out by the the authorities to the newspapers the next day was most interesting. They claimed that Swedish fighter jets had been breaking the sound barrier many hundreds of kilometres away, and that had caused the temors.
Having lived in Bangalore, where breaking the sound barrier by jets was a common practice, and never having ever felt such tremors when they had done so, taught us a lesson about Finnish psyche!
No comments:
Post a Comment