October 5, 2003

“You Shook Me All Night Long”

Saturday, Sept 28, 6:35pm:

I’m sitting in my apartment (4^th floor of a 14 floor building), trying to study, but the phone keeps ringing, prank callers. Its not uncommon, kids call me, try some English and hang up. This particular group, though, was getting annoying and I was considering taking the phone off the hook for a while. Suddenly I hear what I think is a strong windstorm, its common here. I get up to look outside and oddly, the trees and flags that I see are still. The noise gets louder, and the building starts to rock a bit, then I realize…damn…we’re having an earthquake, that’s not supposed to happen up here, its Almaty that’s the earthquake zone…hmm…what do I do NOW? At the same time, the phone rings, it’s the prank callers and we’re having an earthquake, maybe I should answer and ask for help, but they’d probably just laugh and hang up. Then the phone stops and I actually smile outwardly during this shakeup, imagining these kids ready for there next prank then feeling their place start to shake…

The quake lasts about 2-3 minutes, which in quake time is like hours. I move to the doorway between the living room and the corridor, trying to recall if that’s a safe place for earthquakes or tornadoes. Then again I smile, thinking you idiot, you’re on the 4^th floor, no place is safe, you gotta GET OUT. At that moment I hear activity in the hall and I head to the door and evacuate.

I sit outside with everyone else for about an hour waiting for “The Big One” that they all said would come soon. Of course it didn’t come and we all went back inside. I had some damage in the kitchen, just minor, plaster came loose from the ceiling.

Sunday, Sept 29, about 2am:

Sleeping in my bed (which is in the same room as above since I live in a studio), I ‘m awoken by Round #2. There’s another volunteer crashing on my couch, Arthur, and I pop up and tell him we’re having an earthquake. He mumbles something and rolls over. Then he pops up and comments “hey, I just felt the building move”, then lays back down. This quake stops sooner, and I hear activity outside, people evacuating once again. I stand in the living room, wondering if I really want to go stand outside (it was cold too) for a half hour for nothing, knowing this earthquake stuff is so unpredictable. I also go through in my mind that I’m completely unprepared if we do have a big one. So, I pack a small backpack of stuff: laptop, digital cam, pair of jeans to change into, extra socks, passport and money. I figured everything else can go, and I can still live and work here with a laptop, some id and my credit card. I put this stuff by the door along with my dublonka (remember that’s the hugely expensive coat I bought last year, also wanted to save that). Then I went back to bed and laid down on top of the blankets, waiting and wondering, feeling guilty about not going out. Nothing happened and I fell asleep eventually.

Monday, Sept 30, mid-afternoon

Minor aftershock, I didn’t feel it.

Wednesday, October 2, 12pm:

I’m at the school, getting my weekly tutoring lesson, and I hear all the kids running down the halls, during class time. My tutor, a skitterish woman, goes out in the hallway to check it out. She comes back to tell me that Kazzinc, a local mining company, had called to say there is a large (6.0+) quake about to happen, so we’re evacuating the building. So lesson’s over, we head outside to stand around with the kids.

Nothing happens. I go have lunch, then head back to Pragma at about 2:10pm, where I see people outside. I start to go inside, and I’m told its not safe, we’re supposed to have an earthquake by 2:30pm. I go to the shop to get a snickers, starting to doubt this earthquake forecasting that’s going on.

2:30pm, same day, all’s quiet. But, they say there’s a warning until 6pm. 6:01pm, all’s quiet. All remains quiet until this moment as I type this. The latest word is that within the next MONTH or two we’re supposed to have a large one. Nice thing to look forward to.

I have some concern. I was told a while back that the particular building I live in has been deemed earthquake unsafe, because of some problem with the mix of mortar between the bricks. I have actually considered making a deal of it, but I’m not absolutely sure of the accuracy of what I heard (nothing here is actually a “fact”). Plus, the epicenter was already set, and the quake was huge, like over 7.0, so I’m thinking that epicenters don’t move all the time, so its very unlikely we’ll get anything stronger than the 4.0 that we had this time. This is my theory anyway, we’ll see how it pans out.

So that was my week of earthquake fun. Although it wasn’t major, it was probably one of the scariest moments in my life the sense of helplessness, waiting for the building to come down. I know the quakes in California are scary, but I think there is an additional fear here because of knowing that there is no code that buildings are built from, and if there was it was probably bypassed by a bribe. Its this distrust of the construction that unnerves me.

On a last note, I was so surprised that a quake of such magnitude didn’t even make CNN. It was officially registered at 7.3, located in the Altai mountains in Russia, about 400 KM north of here. Not even a word on the news. This lack of coverage is indicative of my whole experience here, this truly is a lost continent.

Gotta run, my new tutor is arriving here in a half hour, I’m trying a new approach to the language, a young college girl wants to tutor me. It’s all about motivation…

Later,

Andrew