In Reply to: If you dont mind, could you share posted by Fiona on Thursday, 3. March 2016 at 15:26 Bali Time:
Tapping away at my laptop in my guesthouse room I knew immediately - it was an earthquake!
It has become my habit when living and traveling in Asia to bolt my door from the inside where possible to ward against the unscrupulous should I fall asleep, and with tremors of a 7.9 earthquake now vibrating through my first floor room with increasing violence, I launched myself off the bed toward the door snatching at the slim mechanism locking me in my room. The small metal nub I had to grab in order to slide the bolt free kept slipping between my thumb and fore finger as the guesthouse started to toss me from side to side. I put myself in a three quarter crouch securing my mass against the floor and the building's violent dance - with the third attempt my fingers gripped and pulled the bolt free releasing the door.
My first floor room opened out toward reception where I saw Deepa a young staff member sat frozen with fear. 'RUN. EARTHQUAKE!' I yelled at her, but she seemed not to hear me, she just looked straight ahead stuck to her chair. I yelled at the young woman again as I made my way to the top of the stairs that was my escape, she sat un-moving. In hindsight I should have grabbed her, but my sense of self preservation was extreme.
The two flights of ten stairs had to be descended to get me to a corridor leading outside, and with the building now protesting violently I only managed the first flight before a wall slapped my right shoulder sending me falling to the bottom of the second series of steps, my right knee taking the weight as it hit the concrete.
I lifted myself into a sprinter's ‘starter' position at the base of the stairs in a state of heightened awareness I've not experienced before - my knee hurt. I could see down the corridor to the open door outside six or seven metres away. Bricks, pot plants and concrete debris fell into the skinny Thamel lane in front of me. Almost instantly I decided to take my chance outside rather than risk being buried under the rubble of my guesthouse should it collapse which seemed a very real possibility. I dashed into the daylight pausing with just enough time to glance upward should I need to avoid more falling objects as I got into the lane.
And just like that, it stopped, the ground stood still. The slight swaying of electrical cables that snaked their way overhead down the lane could have been from a strong wind if you kept your eyes focused skyward - move your gaze downward to the lane way road however, and it was very obvious what had just happened with colappsed buildings, the roadway strewn with broken bricks, concrete and people running terrified looking for open sky. Thamel with its crammed space of poorly constructed buildings was not the place to be. I knew the integrity of the buildings had been effected and an aftershock was coming, I ran.
Not knowing how long the first aftershock would take to arrive I legged it to an open planned restaurant perhaps thirty metres away. Here I knew the space was relatively free from danger as the surrounding buildings were low and there was a huge area of open sky above far from within a building's drop zone. There was also a huge tree at its centre, the massive girth of its trunk ideal to baracade myself against with a table should I need to. I wasn't the only person with this idea.
Tom was from California and this wasn't his first rodeo. When I met him he'd already put a table at the ready against the tree and was compiling a list of things he would need as he was going to 'bug out' on a flat piece of land outside Kathmandu after the initial aftershocks had passed. Tent, food, water, batteries....the list went on.
There were others at the restaurant. A monk stood shaking uncontrollably, local women and children huddled in fear crying under tables, a group of Japanese women seemed relatively unaffected, some Australians kept drinking with the word "fark" being repeatedly used and stoic staff kept serving. Ten minutes later the aftershock came through.
It's a bizarre phenomenom to see and feel the ground roll and undulate like thick water as liquefaction takes effect under you. It's all very sureal and frightening. As the aftershock hit,me and Tom dived against the tree pulling the table over us. The poor monk was so distressed he just stood there crying, women and children screamed still huddled under the tables, one of the Australians could be heard saying "Far out, far out", the Japanese girls were alert but calm and the staff froze in their positions. The sound of deep rumbling and falling debris again assaulted us all.
When the shaking subsided one of the staff pointed behind us where two stone towers in the distance once dominated the skyline to the west. They were gone replaced by red dust. A building immediately adjacent to the restaurant had a three inch crack that ran the complete length of one of its walls. The air was full of the cries and panic of Nepalese people. It seemed to me they were far more traumatized by the event than others. I watched with interest as the monk sat crossed legged and entered into a meditative state and composed himself.
That night I slept outside on the ground in the rain with everyone else in Nepal. The following day I went to the Australian embassy which was prepared with emergency shelter, food, generator and water. 140 Australians spent their nights squashed against another body in tents.
The airport was closed and no flights were entering or leaving to begin with. Eventually i got a flight to the lakeside town of Pokhara where two weeks later a 7.3 earthquake hit.
I'll not go into details about some things seen. Suffice to say, it was a bad day.