tectonic
When I was 5 years old, I remember having my world shaken as if I were in a snow globe. Instead of artificial plastic white pieces to substitute as snowflakes, volcanic ash fell from the sky and the rumble of the earth shook the stillness of the solid ground beneath my feet. The volcanic eruption at the province 140-150 kilometers away from my childhood home gave me a taste of what armageddon might feel like.
I asked my dad if he remembered this incident and he replied "I don't. I don't like to remember the bad times."
My nanny didn't know what to do and she took me away from the house - yes, we walked out of the house - to our neighbor's, with the plates of land moving and creating a ruckus. As we left, the huge cabinet that held our dishes and utensils shook ominously. After five minutes of the earthquake, the damage inside our home was limited to broken ceramic salt-and-pepper shakers.
Magnitude of the earthquake, as documented on Wikipedia: 7. My family and I were lucky.
It was with this memory that I watched the news about Japan unfold. I felt my stomach cave in.
Mother Nature always has the final say. Two days ago, she shook our world again by stomping and raging at a magnitude of 8.9. The devastation as reported on the news, in my Twitter news feed reduced me to a bumbling mess of tears and snot. I was terrified when I was 5 years old and I am too familiar with that feeling of fear that pervaded in Japan. The after-effects of the tragedy could have rippled across the western coast of the United States and South America and they didn't.
The problem-solver logic kicked in and thought about the parameters of the situation. Data, quantitative considerations come second nature. But in the face of these:
Haruyoshi Yamaguchi | Bloomberg
Saitama Shimbun | Associated Press | Kyodo News
No words.
I send my positive thoughts out: one, for Japan and her countrymen's resilience and strength; two, for Hawaii and its residents, in gratitude that they were spared.
I asked my dad if he remembered this incident and he replied "I don't. I don't like to remember the bad times."
My nanny didn't know what to do and she took me away from the house - yes, we walked out of the house - to our neighbor's, with the plates of land moving and creating a ruckus. As we left, the huge cabinet that held our dishes and utensils shook ominously. After five minutes of the earthquake, the damage inside our home was limited to broken ceramic salt-and-pepper shakers.
Magnitude of the earthquake, as documented on Wikipedia: 7. My family and I were lucky.
It was with this memory that I watched the news about Japan unfold. I felt my stomach cave in.
Mother Nature always has the final say. Two days ago, she shook our world again by stomping and raging at a magnitude of 8.9. The devastation as reported on the news, in my Twitter news feed reduced me to a bumbling mess of tears and snot. I was terrified when I was 5 years old and I am too familiar with that feeling of fear that pervaded in Japan. The after-effects of the tragedy could have rippled across the western coast of the United States and South America and they didn't.
The problem-solver logic kicked in and thought about the parameters of the situation. Data, quantitative considerations come second nature. But in the face of these:
Haruyoshi Yamaguchi | Bloomberg
Saitama Shimbun | Associated Press | Kyodo News
No words.
I send my positive thoughts out: one, for Japan and her countrymen's resilience and strength; two, for Hawaii and its residents, in gratitude that they were spared.