The quake
It was the 27th dawn on May. As usual, my alarm and computer went on. As usual, my half-conscious self instinctively switched the computer to standby mode and set the alarm to snooze (ring a couple of minutes later.) When the alarm rang again, I pushed the snooze button again and continued my sleep.
Some time later after that, the earth was shaking. It was actually the largest quake in my life, but not so big to cause me a panic. "Geez, an earthquake…" was the only thing I thought.
After around 5 seconds, the ground calmed down. I glanced my alarm and saw that it was around 5:55. Curiousity managed to get me up and I went outside. I noticed something broke up in the TV room. People were gathering outside and started talking about the quake.
This was not my first quake on Yogyakarta. Some years ago, when I was in my friend's house, a lot milder quake occured and my friend said that it happens sometimes in his place. Nothing devastating happened at that time, so I thought nothing devastating happened this time.
After eating the boring 4 leaves of bread, I took a bath because I wanted to download stuffs at SIC. Morning Internet is very very fast. While preparing things on my room, I heard a seller (probably vegetable) shouted, "The water's up! The water's up!".
So I stepped on my bike and dashed outside. That's when I started to realize that something weird was going on.
The street is unusually busy for that time of the day. No, actually it's unusually busy regardless of the time of the day. Some people are just standing, seemingly waiting for something uncertain. Other people are in a rush to go somewhere.
I took a detour and tried to see the condition of Sendowo, a street near my dwelling place. Yes, it is indeed full of people. Some children are crying.
I concluded that they were just histerical. The quake is over, buildings are intact. What to worry? So, SIC it was.
On the way there, I noticed that people in school uniform are abound. My guess was that the school was ended prematurely, and a quick inquiry confirmed it.
In the gates of north MIPA, a chemistry guy was voluntarily assuming the role of a policeman by guiding drivers. Not really useful since the road isn't anywehere near a deadlock condition.
Inside the gate, I saw a bunch of underclassmen. I asked Wiwid where was he from. He said that he slept there because he was managing the JOINTS event. Bantering a bit about the quake, I then asked whether SIC is open. He said that it seemed to be open. Great.
On my last meters to SIC, I saw broken shingles (genteng) on the ground. The chemistry building had some cracks on the wall. It turned out that the quake isn't as harmless as I thought.
SIC building also had some cracks on it. Inside, there was a janitor and technician. A "CLOSED" sign prompted me to ask the tech guy. He said that SIC will open if the receptionists comes.
Somewhat dissapointed, I decided to buy a drinking water first and went back to my bike. I also wanted to know to see more street chaos outside.
… (to be continued? probably not…)
For more info see the article at Wikipedia.
