Evac.
As some of you may have heard, there was an earthquake in West Sumatera. Some of the news said that the epicenter was Padang, this is only half true. There were 2 epicenters, one halfway between Padang and Bukitingii, the other in the dead center fo Batusankar. Padang was bearly hit. Batusangkar is where my village is. Nobody in my village was hurd, but some of the houses are cracked and walls are damaged. Now for my expirience:
I dint feel the first shock, I was on the road to bukitingi and in a car and dint notice. We got to Bukitingii (where we were having our debreiff). We dint think much about the quake and went to our rooms in the hotel, mine was on the 3rd floor, and i decided to take a nap.
So sudenly there is a small rumble that brings me semi awake. It's not that big at first but were are just awake to figure out what is going on. The shaking gets bad... fast. Bad enough so that people downstais and outside start to scram. We fly out of our beds, people are yelling about getting the outside, but we have 3 flights to go down, and that taked time and it was shaking so bad you couldent get footing, and you think you spinning becase EVERYTHING is shaking and falling and scraming. We went from in our beds, down 3 floors, and out the door in about 30seconds.
By then the earthquake had stoped, but then everyone was in the streats, most crying, some fainting and everyones blood running. We call the goverment in charge of us and they say to go to Padang, because Padand is not shaking bad and is safe. So we get some cars organized somehow (in indonesia you can get people to drive you anywhere, you just got to pay them enough). But then we have to get our things, so we are running upstairs to get thing we left in the room like bags, shoes (i spent a half hour in the street with no shoes). That went ok and we got in our cars, we had to fill up on gas, we did it quickly and keept going (we also refild all fluids, just in case). We drive, hit traffic, get past it hit more, but this traffic is not moving, becasue there is a bridge down and a landslaide covering the whole road, we turn back up to the nearest comunity ish thing. We end up waiting there about 3h trying to figure out how to get to Padang, aftershoks every hour, everytime it happens people scream and shake in stress afterwards. Differnt plans come up, like riding to the landslide then trying to hike throuh it as fast as possible then getting a ride on the other side, but how dangerus is that compared to staying where we were waiting for another big earthquake that could come at any time. Eventualy the driver says there is a designated safe area near by and that he can drive us there.
We get there and it turns out to be an abandont rail station, flat so no landslide posiblilties and no buildings in the traks so they cant fall on us either. We camped out there for a bout 4 or 5h, made a big fire with the locals, tried to eat some food. A few of us were on the tracks when another smaller shake happened and the tracks vibrated and threw us up, again freaking everyone out. To top it off we were closer to the volcano, and at that point it did not seem like a good idea at all.
The road was now clear between us and padang, but there had been landlids there that demolished cars and killed people and it was likely to happen again if another quake hit. The drivers with us would not drive us, so we called people in charge and within an hour we had 2 busses come from Padang and pick us up. Everyone everwhere was sleeping outside and it was pure insanity.
We finaly got to padang at 11pm safely with all our luggage intact.
I couldent sleep for more than an hour or two at a time because every time the be jiggles a little I was remindede of running out of bed and trying to get down thoses stairs not nowing if the next step the building would crumble away under my feet.
The next day we were chaken but not to bad and set just to finish our week and a half long deebreif. Then they called a meeting at 10am that morning and there they told us that CWY decided that the area was not safe and that we are to be evacuated back to Canada, and that half of us (me) would leave 5pm... that night. Repaking a goodbyes to people we spent 6 months with and might never see again were cramed into one hell of an afternoon. More people crying, now for differnt reasons.
So I got on my flight (to Jakarta) and when we get there where did we stay? the freaking Shariton. 5stars. We went swimming and had hot showers and dint sleep all night. We could ot help but laugh at the situation, the night befor train tracks, now swimming in a bueatifull pool with turtle fountains.
We got another flight to Singapore this morninig and I am here now. I'l got to Tokyo in about 2and a half days and then bee home probably on the 13th, as loong as out last minute bookings hold.
It's been one hell of a rolercoaster ride, but I made it out while keeping a smile on my face through the whole thing, I'v never smiled so much.
At any rate; Bee home soon and I can tell you all the other helarius events that I cant fit into words. See you soon!
I dint feel the first shock, I was on the road to bukitingi and in a car and dint notice. We got to Bukitingii (where we were having our debreiff). We dint think much about the quake and went to our rooms in the hotel, mine was on the 3rd floor, and i decided to take a nap.
So sudenly there is a small rumble that brings me semi awake. It's not that big at first but were are just awake to figure out what is going on. The shaking gets bad... fast. Bad enough so that people downstais and outside start to scram. We fly out of our beds, people are yelling about getting the outside, but we have 3 flights to go down, and that taked time and it was shaking so bad you couldent get footing, and you think you spinning becase EVERYTHING is shaking and falling and scraming. We went from in our beds, down 3 floors, and out the door in about 30seconds.
By then the earthquake had stoped, but then everyone was in the streats, most crying, some fainting and everyones blood running. We call the goverment in charge of us and they say to go to Padang, because Padand is not shaking bad and is safe. So we get some cars organized somehow (in indonesia you can get people to drive you anywhere, you just got to pay them enough). But then we have to get our things, so we are running upstairs to get thing we left in the room like bags, shoes (i spent a half hour in the street with no shoes). That went ok and we got in our cars, we had to fill up on gas, we did it quickly and keept going (we also refild all fluids, just in case). We drive, hit traffic, get past it hit more, but this traffic is not moving, becasue there is a bridge down and a landslaide covering the whole road, we turn back up to the nearest comunity ish thing. We end up waiting there about 3h trying to figure out how to get to Padang, aftershoks every hour, everytime it happens people scream and shake in stress afterwards. Differnt plans come up, like riding to the landslide then trying to hike throuh it as fast as possible then getting a ride on the other side, but how dangerus is that compared to staying where we were waiting for another big earthquake that could come at any time. Eventualy the driver says there is a designated safe area near by and that he can drive us there.
We get there and it turns out to be an abandont rail station, flat so no landslide posiblilties and no buildings in the traks so they cant fall on us either. We camped out there for a bout 4 or 5h, made a big fire with the locals, tried to eat some food. A few of us were on the tracks when another smaller shake happened and the tracks vibrated and threw us up, again freaking everyone out. To top it off we were closer to the volcano, and at that point it did not seem like a good idea at all.
The road was now clear between us and padang, but there had been landlids there that demolished cars and killed people and it was likely to happen again if another quake hit. The drivers with us would not drive us, so we called people in charge and within an hour we had 2 busses come from Padang and pick us up. Everyone everwhere was sleeping outside and it was pure insanity.
We finaly got to padang at 11pm safely with all our luggage intact.
I couldent sleep for more than an hour or two at a time because every time the be jiggles a little I was remindede of running out of bed and trying to get down thoses stairs not nowing if the next step the building would crumble away under my feet.
The next day we were chaken but not to bad and set just to finish our week and a half long deebreif. Then they called a meeting at 10am that morning and there they told us that CWY decided that the area was not safe and that we are to be evacuated back to Canada, and that half of us (me) would leave 5pm... that night. Repaking a goodbyes to people we spent 6 months with and might never see again were cramed into one hell of an afternoon. More people crying, now for differnt reasons.
So I got on my flight (to Jakarta) and when we get there where did we stay? the freaking Shariton. 5stars. We went swimming and had hot showers and dint sleep all night. We could ot help but laugh at the situation, the night befor train tracks, now swimming in a bueatifull pool with turtle fountains.
We got another flight to Singapore this morninig and I am here now. I'l got to Tokyo in about 2and a half days and then bee home probably on the 13th, as loong as out last minute bookings hold.
It's been one hell of a rolercoaster ride, but I made it out while keeping a smile on my face through the whole thing, I'v never smiled so much.
At any rate; Bee home soon and I can tell you all the other helarius events that I cant fit into words. See you soon!
posted by Josh at 12:41 AM
1 Comments:
Josh I'm so glad that everything is ok, wish you all the best and enjoy your debrief. Take care
Andy
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