Shake Us Up Jesus
Last Monday was the first time my cat felt real grass. Incidentally, it was his first time meeting people of different races, ages and voices. This tortoise-shell feline was saved, barely living, from a monsoon drain near the Kelana Jaya Giant by mom and bro. It was purely skin and bones, as if God had forgotten to create flesh in its frail body. Babu had an absess on his left eye and couldn't see clearly. We decided to keep him as a pet on our 19th floor apartment.
Moments before my condo swayed from the tremors, I was playing with Babu on my bed. Babu tried to climb out the window, so I got him out of the room. I fell asleep. Minutes later, I hear my brother frantically waking us up. My immediate thought was "Oh-shit. the cat jumped out the window". I felt the floor shake a little (and it wasn't the wine I had earlier). John tells us to run downstairs as a tremor had shaken the condo. I look out the window and I see people evacuating the other blocks. We grab our belongings: handphones, wallets and Babu and calmly walk down. Walking down nineteen floors calmly in an emergency is boring. It seemed unending.
While walking down, I try to make phone calls to friends who would have access to the latest news. Obviously, Malaysian news is slower than some countries. Once outside the condo, I call a friend in Singapore:
Me: Hey Eugen, how are you? Hey, did you feel any tremors in Singapore? ... cause felt it here and just evacuated our condo..
Eugen: No.. Well, I'm driving.. I will turn on the news and let you know.
Eugen is a pilot with a Singaporean airlines and flies to Acheh quite often. He's a late-night person, hence his driving around at about 1 am.
SMS corespondence:
Eugen to Kevin: Shit, quake just happened near Acheh Area. Magnitude of 8.5
20 minutes later (or more) I get messages from other Malaysians about the quake. I'm sure their Singaporean friends were instrumental.
Babu, on the other hand was busy hiding under my mom's armpit. He (and I) have never seen over 150-200 ++ people crowd the road outside my condo. Most of them were students, celebrating the moment with laugther, earthquake jokes and exaggerated accounts of the tremors. One guy saw waves on our swimming pool. I'm sure there was.
Two hours had passed and most of the crowd had gone back convinced that the building wasn't going to fall. We decided to stay out for another hour after a stray rumour about another tremor at 2 something a.m. We stayed out till 3 something a.m. When everyone had cleared. All five of us, Quinton, John, Babu, myself and our mom said a prayer of praise to Jesus for his divine protection on the residents of the condo, potential victims and current victims of the quake. God really moves us in mysterious ways. We decided to go back home and just be prepared for the rest of the night.
Though the tremors were deadly, it gaves us an interesting break of routine. Now I know what it's like to have to evacuate my building in an emergency. I learnt new things: 1. My condo isn't equipped with an alarm system for emergencies, 2. We don't have enough manpower to evacuate all the dwellers, 3. Tremors at night have the massive potential of increasing Mamak sales. I appreciated our family time spent downstairs. It also gave me an opportunity to rest the next morning as I called in late for work.
Moments before my condo swayed from the tremors, I was playing with Babu on my bed. Babu tried to climb out the window, so I got him out of the room. I fell asleep. Minutes later, I hear my brother frantically waking us up. My immediate thought was "Oh-shit. the cat jumped out the window". I felt the floor shake a little (and it wasn't the wine I had earlier). John tells us to run downstairs as a tremor had shaken the condo. I look out the window and I see people evacuating the other blocks. We grab our belongings: handphones, wallets and Babu and calmly walk down. Walking down nineteen floors calmly in an emergency is boring. It seemed unending.
While walking down, I try to make phone calls to friends who would have access to the latest news. Obviously, Malaysian news is slower than some countries. Once outside the condo, I call a friend in Singapore:
Me: Hey Eugen, how are you? Hey, did you feel any tremors in Singapore? ... cause felt it here and just evacuated our condo..
Eugen: No.. Well, I'm driving.. I will turn on the news and let you know.
Eugen is a pilot with a Singaporean airlines and flies to Acheh quite often. He's a late-night person, hence his driving around at about 1 am.
SMS corespondence:
Eugen to Kevin: Shit, quake just happened near Acheh Area. Magnitude of 8.5
20 minutes later (or more) I get messages from other Malaysians about the quake. I'm sure their Singaporean friends were instrumental.
Babu, on the other hand was busy hiding under my mom's armpit. He (and I) have never seen over 150-200 ++ people crowd the road outside my condo. Most of them were students, celebrating the moment with laugther, earthquake jokes and exaggerated accounts of the tremors. One guy saw waves on our swimming pool. I'm sure there was.
Two hours had passed and most of the crowd had gone back convinced that the building wasn't going to fall. We decided to stay out for another hour after a stray rumour about another tremor at 2 something a.m. We stayed out till 3 something a.m. When everyone had cleared. All five of us, Quinton, John, Babu, myself and our mom said a prayer of praise to Jesus for his divine protection on the residents of the condo, potential victims and current victims of the quake. God really moves us in mysterious ways. We decided to go back home and just be prepared for the rest of the night.
Though the tremors were deadly, it gaves us an interesting break of routine. Now I know what it's like to have to evacuate my building in an emergency. I learnt new things: 1. My condo isn't equipped with an alarm system for emergencies, 2. We don't have enough manpower to evacuate all the dwellers, 3. Tremors at night have the massive potential of increasing Mamak sales. I appreciated our family time spent downstairs. It also gave me an opportunity to rest the next morning as I called in late for work.
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