Intensity 6

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

It began as a vibration and I thought some insensitive big truck driver was forcing his way through the narrow street in front of my apartment. Then the cabinet door swung wildly and the old, wooden floors creaked and croaked, giving one a feeling that things were loosening up, and heaven forbid, falling apart.

That’s when I rushed down from the second floor, and out to the street, where people from the nearby buildings and apartment units were already massing. Good Friend H was there, apparently shaken, telling her cake crew to get out and stay out of the building. The electric post was swinging precariously, threatening to fall on my car. Just as things seemed to quiet down, we saw the overhead lamps of H swinging again. Oh, no, somebody gasped, aftershocks!

For a brief moment yesterday, we went through what other people across the planet have gone through in recent years, except that ours was not as deadly nor sweeping.  But no matter how briefly, it was enough, thank you, to give us an idea of how it goes when disasters strike.

As the earth quieted down, so did the cacophony of voices rose, no doubt excited, agitated, and on the whole stirred by what happened and what could have, had it continued for a little more time.  I guess the tension wrought by the very real danger of the earth shaking everyone and everything out of place had contributed to the deafening gaggle; telling stories was one way people were releasing their pent-up tension, and how!

The poles could have slammed down on us! The house could have collapsed! The doors could have been jammed! 

There were still people in the streets when I went out for lunch. Out in Lacson street, the high noon traffic madness was at its height, but noticeably, there was an eerie sense of quiet – nobody was irritably honking his horn – even as cars struggled to keep moving.  Unlike in ordinary days when people would honk as a way of staring down others in the jam, it looked like everybody was trying to understand each other, like some chastised people.

Lunch of course was all about the earth’s tremor, all the more because halfway through the appetizers, the glasses started shaking and the plates moving: another after shock.

For many of us, that earthquake yesterday was the strongest ever we have felt, and hopefully, the strongest ever we will feel in our lifetime. It registered 6.9 at its epicenter in Tayasan, Negros Oriental and  6 in Bacolod city. Many of us had thought they had high blood pressure or vertigo or some medical attack when they first felt it.

Interestingly, the incident also gave us a first-hand experience of how information now travels. In just a few seconds, some said even during the quake itself, people were calling and texting about it.

It  took just as fast for the  news, and all the sidelights it spawned, to get posted in Facebook. Earth shakes!   ,was how one wall post screamed the news. Of course there were  a lot of rumours and even jokes that swirled in the aftermath.

From Dumaguete came this text: Rushing to the Boulevard to watch the coming tsunami. One more line for It’s more fun in the Philippines!*

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