September also brings Earthquakes

I've experienced two earthquakes in my life. Both times have been in Jakarta. Both have been over 7.0 magnitude - I don't get the small ones. The first earthquake woke me from my sleep. This one happened while I was on a conference call with our colleagues in Africa. You can read about the details and devastation on CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo.

I had two colleagues with me in my office when the building started to shake. Initially, I thought it was just the typical sounds and shimmy we hear and feel throughout the day (I still haven't figured out what it is but I'm starting to think it has to do with air conditioning). When it persisted, and then the building started to visibly sway, we knew we were having an earthquake.

We ended our call and headed out of my office, which is nothing but walls of glass. Immediately, people started to vacate the building. I didn't. I remembered the memo the Ritz gave us after my first earthquake explaining why it is much safer to remain indoors than to go outside. Basically, if the building is still standing when the quake is done, it will remain standing. If it were going down, it would be down already. That can't be said for the external decorations which, being separate from the foundation, and only attached to the outside, could fall from the building and kill you as you stand outside. My wife had never experienced and earthquake, so I called her while it was still happening and explained that she needed to stay inside.

As I expected, as the building vacated, building management announced we'd just had an earthquake and tells everyone not to leave the building but instead to sit under a table or desk. Of course, everyone is too busy filing down the fire escape to pay heed to the instructions. Indonesia experiences several earthquakes per year, but Jakarta seldom feels them, so people have a short memory about what to do.

After ten minutes or so, I returned to my desk and completed my work for the day. I noticed a large crack in the wall of my office that hadn't been there before the earthquake. I finally left about 45 minutes later, at 3:40, when my company's emergency response team told me executive management was sending everyone home. On the way out, I swung by the restroom because I knew the drive home would be horrendous with everyone now leaving work early as a result of the quake. There were several obvious cracks in the walls. I'll be taking pictures of them tomorrow and posting them after we arrive in Singapore.

Did I mention my wife and daughter move to Singapore tomorrow? The timing couldn't be better.