Earthquake

I began getting half panicked texts from a friend. People in her neighborhood had run outside and were shouting "Earthquake! Earthquake!  Brrrrrrrrr! Brrrrrr!" repeatedly. People here traditionally believed that earthquakes are caused by a giant under the earth moving around and that if you make enough noise he will stop. They would run outside and shout and beat on pots and pans

Last night just before 9pm I was standing in the kitchen and started feeling dizzy and a bit off balance. I grabbed the counter and then realized we were having an earthquake. I could then see the kitchen door swinging back and forth on its hinges. I looked at the clock to note the time. The quake went on and on, swaying back and forth. No hard jolts, just swaying back and forth. I began wondering if we ought to go outside or what but it wasn't hard, just very, very noticeable! It was more than 2 minutes from when I started looking at the clock to when the door seemed to finally stop moving. Maybe people weren't making enough noise to stop it sooner!

There was no damage here, just temporary dizziness, and a lot of folk having a hard time calming down enough to get to sleep. I booted up the computer and saw there had been an off shore tectonic-related quake a few hundred kilometers away of 7.9. Wow, imagine what the folk at the epicenter felt!

Earthquake and Flood

For decades there have been stories of people dreaming that the mountain lake would break open and flood the valley below, washing it all to the sea.  I won’t be suprised if I start hearing those stories again.  Last week the area experienced a 6.2 earthquake. The center was very near that inland lake and that area was the hardest hit. Hundreds of relatively simple village houses in the district were flattened or so severely damaged that they need to be knocked down because they are no longer safe. Six people were killed and dozens injured mainly contusians, bruises, broken bones, head injuries. A ten kilometer stretch of the road from the city was blocked by dozens of landslides which slowed down relief efforts for several days. The lake itself is in the middle of a national forest and the only way into that area is 3 hours by motorbike over a treacherous mountainous jungle trail – once you get past the 10 kilometers of landslides on the main road.

The quake was felt over a wide area. In the city 50 kilometers away, the earthquake seemed to not cause much damage but certainly created some panic, particularly among shoppers at a 3-story mall.  It happened late Saturday afternoon near sunset as many people were preparing to celebrate the end of the month of fasting. One man described it as a strong jolt, followed by an even stronger jolt and then nearly two minutes of swaying. He opined that the swaying was what knocked down so many houses.

The area is located on a major fault line. Experts say the opposing sides of the fault move about 3 cm a year.  The last major quake was 2009 (see entry “Rumblings”). In 2004 the hot springs at a village near where I stay burst open with hot water shooting 3-4 meters into the air. This time the quake was further inland in the mountains and apparently didn’t affect that hot spring but caused a lot more damage to villages in the mountains.

So, while many from that disaster are living in tents and wondering what to do next, another disaster hit the province on the other side of the mountains. This past Saturday during a heavy downpour around 9pm a huge flash flood slammed into 8 villages along a river. The water was carrying huge logs (illegal logging up stream??) which have caused tremendous damage, perhaps the worst being two bridges on the main trans-island hiway along the coast. Traffic from one end of the island to the other has been effectively stopped as there are no good alternative routes. Most alternative routes meander through mountains and are likely to have a number of landslides, common after a period of heavy rain.

So far we have heard that three people were killed, a 2-year-old still missing. At least two of the affected villages are people of the No language group. People there don't usually live on the river banks but since the land is pretty flat right there, a huge rise in water level would affect houses near by. One friend who was there visiting relatives has been stranded, unable to get transportation. Another man returning from further away has had to turn around and go back until the driver can figure out an alternative route. The traffic at one point was backed up nearly 5 kilometers.

Usually when a bridge collapses, traffic just drives down the bank and through the water at a shallow area but this river is too fast and too deep for that. Today I hear that people are crossing in boats where one of the bridge is broken.

Again, dozens of houses have been damaged. On the other side of the mountains, two gold miners were carried off and drowned in the torrent of the river on that site, and down below in the city, several houses along that river were carried away and a couple dozen more filled with mud.

It's been quite a time in No-land lately!

 *Pictures off the internet.

 

 

Flash flood

On December 3, 2011 a strange flood swept through a mountain village, killing six people, destroying 36 houses, severely damaging another 150. According to the news, it had been raining heavily causing a flash flood. But according to the locals, it wasn’t a normal flood, it was like a cold mud “eruption” from under the ground. It just suddenly happened, shooting boulders and mud up in the air as high as a tree according to a witness resting in a hut on a nearby hillside. The "eruption" site was in a small valley upsteam not near any houses but the huge boulders and mud overflowed into a stream bed flooding a series of hamlets downstream. They said something similar had happened about 100 years ago according to their ancestors. A geologist in the area advised them to move and not to rebuild the village as he said the same thing could happen within the next 20 years and so it would not be worth rebuilding on the same site. Of course, resettling hundreds of people is easier said than done. Meanwhile the government, the Salvation Army, and other relief groups have been bringing food, clothes, and other supplies such as shovels, buckets, and tools. The following is a video taken with a cell phone by Rinto, a relief worker bringing in supplies. As of today (March 12) many are still living in tents or with relatives in other villages nearby.

See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5MLnwqVqO0

Fragility of Life

World news has dominated the local news for the last 3 weeks. Many local people have friends and family working in the Middle East so each report of increasing tension or violence in Libya, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia is met with great concern here. Several people from this country were also apparently killed in the earthquake in New Zealand. The news carried the story of one young woman's last text messages to her mother as she lay trapped in the rubble. She was at a language school there to improve her English so that she could be employed as a nurse. So far 5 from this country have been identfied by DNA. She is among the 11 who are still missing.

But now the focus has switched to Japan. The destruction and loss of life is astounding and reminds me very much of Aceh. The main difference is the huge numbers of cars caught up in the debris. But the sheer enormity of the MESS left behind is mind boggling. More than 1/4 million citizens of this country work in Japan. Most are in the Tokyo area but several thousand were in the area devastated by the tsunami.

There were tsunami warnings here. All along the eastern coast people were warned away from the shore line. Fishermen were not allowed to go out and most pulled their boats way up the beach as far as they could. Several areas did report unusually large waves up to 1-2 meters high, but there were no reports of injuries or damage.

And now the radiation concerns. Yesterday people all over the country were frantically forwarding a text message that said that radiation from Japan would be blowing our way soon and so everyone should immediately paint their throats with Betadine and use an umbrella when they were outside. News stations on TV and radio were busy last night and this morning playing it down as a hoax. The government says they will be watching but that it is extremely unlikely there would be any problem because the prevailing winds blow out over the Pacific Ocean, not in our direction.

Japanese colleagues report the relief of finding friends and family are safe. But others whose travel takes them through the Tokyo airport have reported major delays and difficulties with local transportation.

All of this again a reminder of how fragile our lives are. Everything can change, irrevocably, in an instant.

Apparently the spat between The Mayor and The Church has been put on temporary hold due to recent events. Another summary execution, but not by the masked bike riders.

A few days ago a 20-year old woman was kidnapped on her way home from her college in this city. She is the daughter of the head of one of the main rebel groups. Her body was found a couple days later in a canal on the outskirts of the city. She had died of multiple stab wounds and showed evidence of torture. It is not yet known who was responsible but speculation is rampant. Members of the rebel group assume it was the military. The Mayor has begun his own investigation and announced the other day that he is 70% sure it was not anyone from a government agency. The modus operandus led a leader of a consortium of activist groups to speculate that the perpetrator was a certain retired general. According to her, those killers are new in this area and are not part of the usual assortment of thugs which are under observation by security forces. Whoever did it was smart enough to make a fake license plate to display on the vehicle used.

The papers, The Mayor, the local military chief all pointed out that killing family members of rebel leaders makes their own families vulnerable to similar attacks and condemned it most strongly.

Some of the ordinary folk conceed that they could see somebody wanting revenge on her father since he has been responsible for the death and maiming of many. But everyone seems appalled that such a thing should happen to a young woman who by all accounts was not involved in her father's rebellion.

The Mayor’s latest problem

As I’ve noted before we have a sovereign king here who is called The Mayor. He is well liked by the vast majority of the voters who have reelected him 5 times by overwhelming majorities. He is credited with cleaning up this city of criminal elements. Other projects have been garbage collection, anti-smoking laws, anti drug campaigns, and work on traffic flow. He has a reputation of being very tough but fair and has also worked for peace in this troubled area, and has won the trust of many on all sides of the various conflicts.

For a number of years there have been mysterious killings of suspected (and often convicted) drug dealers in this town. The modus operandi is always the same: two masked men in black pull up on a motorcycle and one shoots the victim, usually in the head and off they go. It can happen at night or in broad daylight, but always out in the open. Since I came, I have heard many rumors that someone big was behind it. Some say the mayor, some say the police because it is efficiently done and no one is ever caught.

Locals tell me that the vigilantes rarely (some say never) make mistakes. People say that folk caught selling drugs are given two warnings. The third time is it. We have heard stories of people being let out of jail on a second or third drug charge and getting shot before the day was out. A neighbor of ours had a troubled son who was arrested twice for drug possession. Then one night a warning note appeared on their door. He was smart. He left town before dawn. I hear he has since cleaned up his act.

I barely missed witnessing a killing one day. Shortly after I passed by at 2pm, a man walking down the same road was shot and killed by the vigilantes. Another friend tells of walking home late one night from the factory where she works. Two masked men pulled up in front of her in a motorcycle, one shone a light in her face and said “It’s not her.” They then took off. But my friend was so badly shaken that she could hardly stand. Apparently there was a woman of similar build and similar long hair who had also worked intermittantly at that factory who was rumored to use and/or sell drugs. Needless to say that woman left town too when she heard about the incident.

Another friend was telling me that it has spread outside the city now. A young man in her village was recently shot dead by the same method. He had been a troubled youth and known to use drugs and alcohol a lot. Two men rolled up on a motorcycle and shot him one evening as he was sitting in front of a local shop. My friend said that according to neighbors, it was likely he had been selling drugs and that is why he was targeted.

It IS very unnerving to think about people getting shot like that. People say that drug peddlars often get out of jail easily because they have lots of money and it is apparently easy to bribe your way out. So they say that the judicial system doesn’t work and that’s why the vigilantes have stepped in. But of course what happens if there is a mistake? What if someone is falsely accused of drug pushing, perhaps by an envious neighbor, and they end up getting killed? I mean, you can recover from a beating and live to mend your ways, but getting killed is pretty permanent. The other troubling thing is that, like everywhere else, the big fish are never caught. It’s always the small dealer.

(There are other types of killings that go on around here too, particularly gang killings and what are called “summary executions”. Different modi operandi. If killing could be ranked, no doubt they would be worse. But that is another story.)

Rumblings

A friend from the second of my worlds texted yesterday morning and said they had just had a strong earthquake. She had been out in the rice field spraying when it hit. She said there was a loud rumble with it and it was so strong it knocked her to her knees. She said the local elementary school kids were outside at the time having a flag ceremony and when the quake hit they just scattered, running home crying. Schools were cancelled the rest of the day. She didn't have any news at that point as to any structural damage or whether the hot springs in the next village burst open again.

Amazing what you can do with modern technology - I looked it up right away on the internet at IRIS Seismic and there it was already posted, a 5.7 with a center 20km south of town - just about exactly where my friend lives! So I texted her the info. Two friends in the nearby town said they were okay, that schools had been cancelled but people weren't panicking and running for the hills in fear of a tsunami or anything. No further news so apparently all is well.