This week I wished I had paid more attention in Geography lessons. It's fair to say that the coverage on TV and the internet (well, what we could access of the internet with limited electrical power) about the likelihood of a tsunami wasn't all it could have been. Thankfully damage seems to be very minimal. I confess to feeling a bit like my heroine Chloe from 24, updating what information I had on text messages and facebook.
Almost every mother at the school the next day had a newspaper in hand - I've never seen this before. Our reading of choice is The Hindu
So what was it all about?
On Wednesday I collected little H from school at our usual 12.15 slot, we headed home via a very nice deli and sat down for a late lunch together at home.
I wondered if I was feeling a bit wobbly as it's awfully hot here and I happened to be perched on one of little H's small Ikea chairs. She seemed fine. Then the bookcases started rattling with books shifting and the entire wooden prights moving back and forward. We don't have any lights hanging down from the ceiling, so it wasn't entirely evident that we were experiencing our first earthquake in Chennai.
Then my husband called, saying that his office had been evacuated out to the carpark and insisting that we get out of the 11 storey apartment block. I stayed on the line, somewhat in denial and popped out onto the balcony but couldn't see anyone outside. Then our doorbell rang and one of the building's cleaning ladies encouraged us to come out. I grabbed my handbag and bottle of water, flung on my shoes, pushed little H into her slip on shoes, seized a sunhat for her and a floaty multipurpose-in-case-of-emergencies-scarf for me from by the door and out we went. I have a pretty good daily supply in my handbag satchel anyway - money, cards, first aid kit, phone, change of clothes for little H, wipes, rubbish bags, so I didn't think about anything else and out we headed. Unusually for us, down the stairs.
As we got downstairs we joined the groups of (mainly) ladies milling about in the car park. One of our new expat neighbours was there with her lovely little dog and she, thankfully, got even more attention than little H does (note to self - we should hang out with her MUCH more).
Husb rang again and said that he'd heard that the earthquake had taken place off the coast of Indonesia near Sumatra (as in 2004) and that it was 8.9 on the Richter scale. Most importantly, there was a tsunami warning out for a possible tsunami for the whole region with estimated arrival time for 2 hours later in Chennai. This part of the world was affected in 2004 - but not our area of the city. We live about 5km from the coast and we were reassured by English-speaking neighbours that the water did not get this far...I doubted that it had, but it was difficult to persuade our new neighbour that she didn't need to pop back to her apartment to collect her family's passports and instead to stay outside avoiding any further earthquake danger. This girl had arrived from Italy only a month ago, had limited English (my Italian is entirely confined to Latin and menus) and was really frightened about the prospect of a tsunami.
I started sending group text messages to everyone I had a number for - most of whom lived down the East Coast Road (many in large houses directly facing the beach), letting them know about the warning and inviting them to our place if they wanted to come. I didn't get many messages back (and didn't really know if the messages had got through, as the networks were presumably overloaded) but the odd message started coming back, assuring me that people were heading for hotels as husbands' factories and offices were being evacuated.
So we hung around, met another expat neighbour, her baby son & her visiting friend- and again tried to reassure that we didn't need to collect our passports (I really will start to keep these in a tin box nearer the door...) and then we eventually started following people back into the building. Decided that 4th floor is the optimum level for an apartment - not too far to walk up the stairs (I was fearing an aftershock, knocking out the lift) and not too low that rising waters would reach us...
And I compromised over little H's strong desire to dance and play and my preference to sit anxiously by a television/computer by just this once combining use of our portable DVD player (nothing calms us down like The Wiggles) and the TV.
Emails started appearing on my phone from little H's school, explaining arrangements for those whose children hadn't yet been collected. I felt very fortunate to have already collected little H and arrived safely back. Of course for some who lived nearer to the coast the school (further inland) was a safer option. Many reported the next day that it was the Japanese families, of course, who were feeling the upset most - that it was clear from the looks in their eyes what they remembered about last year's disaster in Japan and their fears again for their families.
No sign of a tsunami, thank goodness. Experts started to state that it was the "wrong kind of quake" for a tsunami - the tectonic plates had moved off the coast horizontally rather than vertically, so water wouldn't be forced up in the same way. Phew x 1 zillion.
2 hours later we had another "wobble" as little H was calling it. Nearly as strong as the first. But the first was downgraded to 8.6. We zoomed to the balcony again. No one seemed to be outside. We jumped under the table and hung out there for a bit, fielding calls and texts again. The TV acknowledged that this aftershock was nearly as strong as the first quake. 8.2. Our neighbours rang and encouraged us to come downstairs again - we felt rather comfortable under the table with our books and toys, so stayed put this time. It was lovely to be able to talk to my parents on Skype to get reassurance and a bit of contact until husb could come home that evening.
The BBC world news channel covered the situation for a while, but we were then persuaded by other expats on Facebook to switch to the local CNN channel where we had much more comprehensive coverage. With some degree of speculation. About jets being scrambled to drop supplies. Etc. I think that the picture of the wet beach in the Andaman islands really was just a picture of a wet beach, and not a beach where the waters had drawn back as the tsunami gathered...and one reporter was standing on Marina Beach wearing a (small) lifejacket interviewing young people about how they had "come to see the tsunami". There is a reason why they didn't "see" the previous one.
We didn't have any house guests (though I ensured that we had a few more towels and sheets in place the next day in case of any future mass visits). I've subscribed to email updates about the Indian ocean area in case of future events. I've reflected on how fortunate it was that a) the event hadn't taken place the week before, when we were at a playgroup birthday party hosted by a mum who lives by the beach. About 30 families of panicking mothers and small children would have been rather more of a challenge to co-ordinate & b) that we usually had a playgroup meet up on a Wednesday, but this week had postponed to a Thursday as that suited our host - again, a huge relief as we each only had our own family to support.
Would you like some more cheerful pictures? I thought so....here we are celebrating Easter. Another Pinterest challenge - eggs "curtains" decorated by little H.
