Earth Quake

As usual I went to bed at 2230 hrs y'day (8th Sep 2011) night and was watching TV till 2300 Hrs. Raji was also in bed and Sujani was reading in the hall. I might have slept at 2315 hrs. and Raji was awake.

It was 2328 Hrs.

Sujani heard a blast sound and heavy shake & vibration and started running towards bed room shouting that something had happened.

Raji also heard the noise & shake and got up realising it was an Earth Quake

I felt like someone drag my leg and throw away & got up. It took couple of seconds for me to realise about the Earth Quake

Raji asked Sujani to go out..... Sujani asking Raji to wake-up me.... I got up and asked them to go out.....

Panic started and we don't know what to do even though mind says to go out.

I started wearing my shirt, taking out purse, looking for mobile and specs
Raji went to take lock & key to lock the house to go down ..

Somehow within next 45 to 60 seconds we all 3 went out of the building to the open space. Like us many other family also came out of the houses with kids in hand.

Started receiving call from Sridhar, made call to Ravi, Srikanth, Usha etc to know the situation. Sridhar informed that Sandhya fall down from bed due to impact and they also came out. Srikanth told that Srinath fell down from bed. Ravi told there was huge noise in Balcony. Sujani gave information to Sruthi about it.

Even though many came out of house, still we saw many family did not come out of house (even from 2nd and 3rd floor ) standing in balcony and looking around.

TV started flashing the news.

We waited for about 30 minutes outside and went back inside home slowly slowly by 0000 hrs. Watched TV for another 30 min and went to bed.

Even though many advices what to do as part of Disaster Management I heard, later I felt that I wasted more precious time by carrying out unnecessary work like

Need to wear a shirt

Need to take purse

Need to lock the house

We should have evacuated the house at the shortest possible time. Further while leaving the building, we never took caution to be more careful while crossing the last step. There was all possibility that part of terrace projection can fell down at that entrance if there was a break due to impact.

I can't understand why people are not willing to take minimum precaution of coming out of house. Experts says always there is a chance of repeat quake within next 15 or 20 min. as earth will re-stabilise its position. Impact of First quake can not be avoided but we can very well minimise human life loss due to second successive hit.

There was no after shock but I had my own after shock impact. (Again I suddenly wake-up after about an hour and asked everyone to move out saying there is another quake. But actually Raji was taking out blanket away from my leg and I felt it as if it was a quake in sleep !!!)

Somehow everything was settled but we could not sleep peacefully after this yesterday.

God is great and nothing happened to anyone.

Got some wisdom over this incident but hope we should not get any chance to use it in future.

Vasu