Thursday, September 10, 2015

Our Cracked Fate - Part 2

I felt the vibrations, like a subway car coming in beneath the airport. I have felt earthquakes before – a couple in Ottawa, one in Nepal – never anything too big. Each and every time I have felt an earthquake I hadn’t recognized what it was until after it was over. Not this time. For some reason, I knew within a split second. My first feeling was that a train was approaching from my left side, but in less time than I could have even thought the words, I knew it was an earthquake. There is no subway in Nepal after all. 

“Come,” I grabbed Louise’s arm, standing beside me, as I turned abruptly, pulling her the several steps across the arrivals hall to the nearest pillar. I do not know, to this day, how it happened that I did that. If I had subconsciously risk mapped the room and stored it away in some disaster activated part of my memory over the many, many occasions I have moved through that room. If I knew that pillar was there. Or if I have been so well conditioned working in disaster risk management that my brain knew what it was looking for, identified it and instantly reacted. Either way, I dragged Louise directly to that pillar without a single moment’s hesitation. Like a choreographed movement. In the two to three seconds that it took us to arrive, everyone else knew what was happening too. The vibrations had turned into an all-out shake.

“Cover your head. Get down.” I instructed calmly, assuming the drop cover and hold position myself; bringing both arms up over my head to shield the most vulnerable, and valuable, part of my body. She did as I did. The ground rocked and bent furiously beneath my feet. This is a good one, I though, believing it would stop in a mere moment.

It continued. Screams multiplied. I saw nothing but the floor. Not daring to raise my head to survey the room. The earth growled and roared up at us as it tore apart and slammed furiously back together, again and again. Like a clashing cymbal of brick and concrete. Pieces of the ceiling began to crack and fall around us. Shit. Other bodies piled up next to the pillar around us. I had no idea where Carole was. Panic and hysteria lay thick around us. Oh my god. Maybe this is it. I heard Louise begin to pray beside me.

“It’s okay,” I tried to reassure her calmly. She reached out and wrapped her right arm around me, continuing to pray. “It’s okay.” I was telling myself as much as I was telling her. I wouldn’t waste that arm around me when it should be protecting your head, I thought. Chunks of plaster and ceiling tile crashed to the ground. I considered and accepted that the entire building might come down around me. On top of me.

I had always known this day would come. I came here to work in risk reduction. I had known the hazard potential since day one. But still, I never truly believed I would be here to see it. I had imagined myself, back in Canada years in the future, turning on the morning news while I drank my coffee, seeing the breaking story that a massive earthquake had struck Kathmandu. I had imagined the panic I would feel at that moment, the grief, the feeling that the world was falling apart around me. I did not see myself here. With the earth actually falling apart around me.

The joints of the earth slammed together, and the shaking continued. I kept waiting for it to stop, and it didn’t. It occurred to me that I might be buried alive, or worse, that I might die in the Tribhuvan Airport, and I wished I had taken a flight a day later. Then I felt a body fling itself onto the pillar, over top of me, shielding me from the falling debris. In that moment I was filled with hope. I didn’t, and still don’t, know who it was, but I was silently and selfishly thankful to them for protecting me – likely unintentionally. Thanks friend, because whatever falls is going to hit you, not me. Suddenly it seemed possible that I might have to be buried beneath a dead body, but that I could possibly survive. I tucked that hope away inside and just held on.

Then, it stopped. It just stopped. I couldn’t believe it. The earth ceased grinding us in its fist and opened its palm for us to escape. I have not yet been able to summon the words to qualify, or describe the enormity of that feeling. The opportunity for survival. It was like seeing a gun pointed at you, hearing it fire and then finding it had somehow missed.

Oh my god. It stopped. We can get free. We’re still alive. I stood, bringing my arms back down to my side. For a second I was frozen in amazement.

“Ugh, I’m covered in plaster dust,” Louise stated beside me. Also standing up straight.

“We have to go!” I realized Carole had made it to the same pillar on Louise's other side and the three of us were together. I turned to my right and noticed two people, standing surveying the scene, obviously paralyzed by shock. “You should leave the building now,” I commanded firmly. “There may be more coming.” They listened. I turned my attention back to Louise and Carole. “We have to get out of the building. Now.” I spread my arms to usher them towards the exit. The three of us strode quickly across the small arrivals hall.

“Really. We should move fast,” and I broke into a trot. Making my way around broken ceiling panels, chunks of plaster and metal bits that lay strewn across the floor. Debris from above. I knew it could start again. That this could have been just a foreshock. That something worse could be moving towards us, and I didn’t know how long we might have if that were the case. I just knew that I was alive, and that if I wanted to be sure to stay that way I had to get to an open space.

Outside hordes of people milled around in various states of shock and devastation. One foreign couple in particular stood directly outside the entrance with their arms wrapped around each other, starring up at the building in terror, crying uncontrollably. I paused for them only a moment.

“I would very much recommend that you move away from the building. If it collapses, it could fall on you,” I stated in a calm and direct voice before continuing to walk away from the airport. I did not wait to see if they moved or not, or to encourage them further. That was all the time I was willing to take away from myself to give to them.

It wasn’t until we reached a spot in the parking lot, far enough away from any structure to be completely safe, that I began to take stock of the situation. I looked around and saw that all the buildings around the airport were still standing. That was a surprise to me, as many of those structures were built to shocking standards. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it felt. Maybe it was just a small one. I certainly didn’t have any frame of reference for what big earthquakes felt like. My legs and arms trembled, full to the brim of adrenaline, but I forced myself to remain calm, speak slowly, take control of my body.

I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and noticed I had reception - another reason to think this probably wasn’t a serious quake. Since my first day in Nepal I had always understood that when the ‘big one’ came all communications infrastructure would be knocked out, the airport would be destroyed, 60 percent of the buildings in the Kathmandu Valley would be destroyed, nothing would get in or out and misery would reign supreme. That was what we had been preparing for, and all evidence pointed to this not being it. My phone was working!

Lama wasn’t my first priority to call. I already knew his phone was off. And I was more worried about the city than anything else. After all, that was what we had always considered to be the most vulnerable, and the most likely to be devastated in the case of an earthquake. He’s probably better off outside the city. And for the time being, I was actually relieved that he was not in town. Instead I dialed his brother, Raju.

Despite the fact that things looked like they might not be so bad from where I was standing, I have always been sceptical of the seismic resilience of their family’s house. I wanted to make sure they were okay, because when I did get a hold of him I needed to be able to tell him that his family was safe. And because he would do the same for me.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Raju?”

“Yes, hello.”

“Hi, it’s Bronwyn calling. Are you okay? Are you safe?”

“Oh yes, yes miss. We just experienced earthquake here.”

“Yes I know. I am in Kathmandu. I felt it too. Are you okay.”

“Yes, yes. We are safe.”

“And your Mom and Dad? Are they with you?”

“Yes. We are all safe.”

“Oh good. Thank you. I’m so glad to hear that. Please stay outside okay. Please stay safe. There may be more coming. Please be careful.”

“Okay miss.”

“Okay, I will talk to you soon. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Thank god.

After that I flicked on my 3G to send an iMessage to both of my parents. ‘We had an earthquake. I’m fine.’ I quickly fired off to them before switching the 3G off again. I only had 300 rupees of credit left on my phone at the moment, and I assumed I might not have the opportunity to re-charge any time soon.

Malaysian airline stewardesses sobbed in a small group beside us.

“The poor things. They’re probably so on edge already this year, having so many of their colleagues lost in horrible circumstances,” Carole very rightly pointed out. I felt sorry for them. This wasn’t a calculated risk they had taken ahead of time. I hoped they would be able to go home soon. But I assumed the runway was badly damaged, as it has a history of cracking under the heat of a hot summer’s day. Close above us in the sky a low flying jet on its final approach veered sharply to the left, changing course and heading south to India. Above us in the air traffic control tower, the only people who hadn’t evacuated the building scurried around, turning all incoming planes away.

Well, we’re all stuck here now, I couldn’t help but think to myself. It didn’t scare me, it didn’t excite me. It was just a fact. All I saw and all I could think were facts. Not emotions.

I tried to dial Lama one more time before my phone lost signal completely. “The mobile you are calling is switched off.” And then even my reception dropped out. Probably because the networks were completely jammed. Maybe because a couple of towers were compromised. I switched my phone back onto airplane mode, not wanting to waste battery searching for signal because I didn’t know how long I was going to have to rely on this current charge. I just hoped that I was right in my assumption that he was safer, and better off, in the mountains.

The only thing that niggled the back of my conscious was a concern that the shaking could have triggered landslides. I remembered my friend Jwalant telling me, a year ago, when I was preparing to go trekking in Langtang region myself, that the area had always been bad for landslides.

Even from where I stood, in the middle of the city, as I looked up into the hills to my left, I could see a fresh landslide opening up the face of the mountainside above.