This week I experienced my first earthquake ever. As I looked out my 6th floor widow I realized I could see my 13-story apartment brick building swaying gently back and forth.
Fortunately, the 6.6 quake happened in Santander and what I felt were remnants of the incident. And so it got me investigating into the geology of my new home. Colombia is a country in a very active seismic area, surrounded by three lithospheric plates—Nazca, Caribbean, and South American.
Recent major earthquakes date back from 1999 in the coffee region and 1987 on the border with Ecuador, measuring 7.0 and 6.1 respectively on the Richter scale. Each responsible for taking 1,000 lives. The largest recorded dates back from 1875, hitting northern Colombia and killing 16,000 people.
Back to this week’s quake, there I was in the building frightened and untrained to earthquake protocol, you could say I was totally clueless. My boyfriend was standing under the frame of the door and told me to stand next to him. As I heard voices outside our apartment going down the stairwell, without thinking twice, I sprant shoeless down to the lobby where I found the rest of my neighbors.
Coming from the tropics, I always had practice hurricane drills in school. And when hurricanes hit, we had parties. However, earthquakes are a whole new territory for me and much scarier as not only do you not see it coming but you can’t prepare in advance. No party there.
So as I stood outside the lobby of my apartment building with everyone else, I thought it didn’t seem right to stand at the base of the building in case something fell. After bit of research I was very surprised at the information I found.
Unlike the movies, your building is most likely not going to collapse like a flat pancake and people who find shelter under furniture have a strong chance of surviving.
I am embarrassed to say that the two things NOT to do is exactly what I did: Stand under the doorway and run outside when things got worse.
Next time I think I’ll just stay in bed.
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