Day 48 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that I'm fine after the earthquake."

A 6.2 richter scale earthquake shook Bali at 11.30 today and I was scared to death! As usual I was working alone from home and without any subtle warning, the ground shook hard. I quickly realised that it was an earthquake and started calling Mouche the cat. I spent about 2 seconds looking for her before realising that she might be in a better hiding place than I was. So I just rushed outside on my own. I was about to step out of the porch when broken roof tiles flew off over my head and I knew instantly that I wouldn't be safer from the falling debris this way. I heard my neighbours scream as more roof tiles broke and I was really not sure if I should be inside the house with chances of the ceiling fell over me or outside with the violent flying debris.

Fortunately it was over before anything chunky fell over my head. It was reported that at least 50 people were injured from the earthquake, most of who were highschool students.

I decided that outside was better than inside, since repeat quakes were most likely to happen for this scale. So I quickly took a shower and went to Inga's place in Sanur. On the way there, I had to stop in front of Carrefour on Sunset Road because of this:

God has a funny way to show us how little our problems (that we think are big) are.

365 grateful days project Bali disasters

3:43 pm

There have been small earthquakes in Bali that started to happen a few days before the earthquake/tsunami in Japan. I kind of already guessed that these series of small earthquakes (from 4 - 6 richter scale) were leading to something bigger. One was started in Japan, the next one, I don't know when or where. Some friends were calling me if they should indeed have to worry about this. Before any confusion happens, I am NOT some earthquake expert and I have no idea why these very paranoid friends called me about it, as if I was someone working for BMKG (Badan Meteorologi Klimatologi dan Geofisika) and as if I should have known more than the average people watching CNN should. Anyway, I was not worried, and I told these friends that, as Bali is sort of tucked away from the open waters, where tsunami is likely to happen. Earthquakes, however, is a different matter.

There was another small earthquake last night again, scaling at 4.8 richter. It was not big enough to rattle my windows as it did before that Japan tsunami, but it wasn't small enough to let me sleep undisturbed. Just minutes after midnight, I woke up as the earth shook again. I was so sleepy and tired and my headache still lingered, but I felt like I had to stay awake and just be aware in case another one coming up. Fortunately it didn't happen. So I went back to bed and returned to my nightmare.

In the mean time, I am glad that Shierly and family is in Surabaya now. Yes, they will go back to Japan sooner or later, but in the time being, Surabaya seems to be a safer place for them (despite the scorching heat and its thieves).

Bali disasters

1:08 pm