On Wednesday, 2 September we were reminded that we lived in a city that sits on the "Ring of fire", when an earthquake struck at 2:55 p.m measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
It was quite a scary experience, definitely not one that I would like to experiencing again. Having said that, Marc was in the car on his way back to the office and he didn't feel a thing. He actually said that he was sorry he missed it.
Three of us were sitting at a table, when I thought I felt a light motion (like I was back on the Tambora boat). I asked if it was just me and if anyone else felt something. Rozi actually said that she thinks she may have bumped the table and a second later the light motion turned into serious shaking. We quickly moved outside where we stood for approx. 1 minute, watching the water in a natural rock pool sloshing around. We of course debated what the best course of action during an earthquake would be. We figured that our move was a good one but still hoped that the high outside wall wasn't going to come tumbling down.
After about a min. (it felt a lot longer though), we went back into the house and couldn't believe how the lights above the pool table was swaying heavily. Even more shocking was the swimming pool that looked like a wave poo as the water was rocking from side to side, spilling over the sides. Hard to imagine, I know!
I think our experience was quite tame compared to others. What is really hard to imagine is being on the 30th floor of a swaying building; furniture moving around, windows cracking while 100's of people are trying to make their way down the still swaying stairwell.
The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has reported that the epicenter of the quake was 142 kilometers southwest of Tasikmalaya, West Java, and 30 kilometers below the seabed.(JP/Hans David T).
There were some reports of casualties in the Capital. But, most of the casualties and deaths occurred in two towns in West Java province, near the epicenter.
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