Earthquake 2012

February 6, 2012 around 11am, me and my friends were on the jeepney talking. I didn't notice anything until all the passengers starts talking to each other in an anxious way, and then we learned that an earthquake just happened. That was a very disappointing Tweet time for me, cause I didn't have presence of mind. And without thinking again, we still head on and went downtown to buy things for our new house.

A lot of people were outside, crowding the main roads of metro Cebu. Everyone from the buildings went down to make themselves safe from the skyscrapers. Until we reach the nearest crossing we could possibly get off and go to the general merchandise store in downtown Cebu. The people we're still outside, students from University of Cebu were lining up to go some place away from the buildings.

For a few moments, we forgot about the very recent happening. Then we purchased our stuff, went to Ramos riding a jeepney again. I remember we actually talked about Tsunami as an aftermath of earthquakes, like what happened in Japan perhaps, but that didn't really convinced me that would happen in Metro Cebu, or the whole Visayas perhaps.

I actually texted my mother about what happened earlier that time when we were still on our way to downtown, and she claimed, they experienced it too. And from the words of some people we hithced with, they said it was in Negros (which later News confirmed that the epicenter is in that place) and magnitude of about 6.9.

Then we rode a taxi to head back home, until my mother called me through my friend. Alarming me to go highland because allegedly radio reported tsunami occurred and would hit Metro Cebu at 5pm that time. So we  were bothered, and then we panic for a while when we saw a lot of people along Jones Ave. running forward on the direction to the Capitol Site. You can really see on their faces their panic and some even cried (maybe confused why other people were also running). And so I bravely ask another person from another car of the reason why people are racing forward*, and he replied that allegedly* water is at that time filling colon street (well at least not really a flood, just imagine a dramatic rise of water). Well, at that time I was really convinced that it could happen.

I wanted clarification, and the radio on the taxi was just chillin', I mean no alerts or breaking news instead it was  an afternoon radio drama of "Handoomanan sa Oosa Ka Ugh-wit" (spelling goes like that, i kind of based it on how the narrator read it, its bisdak, I might be wrong on that, anyways...) so I asked Mr. driver to change station and scan for news alerts. And then we had the news, and confirmed there is no tsunami but the people are still running, hurrying, packing up.

There was just something I noticed with the news that we were listening to at that time, they should not tell/convince people that there is no tsunami by saying that 'even the shores are on low tide' cause I remember that is one of the indication of an upcoming tidal wave. And authorities should study their expertise, not popping out on radio station and unable to differentiate TSUNAMI ALERTS # 1 and 2, people get confused you know and some would like to out-smart and we don't unite with that.

And going back to our panic trip. I decided to go upward, I thought Lahug was the place, just in case. Eventually we head back to Guadalupe. We went inside Fooda, a supermarket, and when we were about to line up to the cashier, we were surprised with a terrible shaking on the floor and on the ceiling and I actually panicked. When I had sight on my friends, we then hurried down claimed our things and went to the road joining other people who were shocked with the aftershock (rhymed).

Another aftershock around 11pm-12pm. We actually then packed-up foods on one bag and also water. And then we had a goodnight sleep.

The lesson is, prepare, don't panic, be ready.