Aftermath of the Quake

To continue where I left off... I grabbed the essentials from my apartment which basically consisted of minibeanie's milk, 1 bottle, a couple of diapers, jars of baby food and a change of his clothes. We then faced the challenge of making our way to our friend's home. Hailing a cab was extremely difficult as there were markedly fewer cabs on the street and lots of people needed a ride. We walked to a busy intersection in hope that it would be easier to get a taxi. I was sure we looked quite a picture. I'd minibeanie in my baby carrier in front of me and a heavy backpack, my friend tugged along 2 tired blond kids and her husband who had by now found us, towed a trolley luggage. It was getting to be 9pm and we were still waiting in the streets.

Meanwhile, the sense of emergency in the city was palpable. A convoy of military vehicles with their sirens blaring passed us by a hair's breadth when we were crossing a road. Then, heavy vehicles with lifting equipment, ambulances & fire trucks thundered by. There was a sense of foreboding - something bad has happened.

Finally, a kind taxi driver allowed us to hitch a ride with his existing passenger and we reached our destination late in the evening. It was the closest I felt to a refugee - not just the grime and dirt but the sense of uncertainty and unease. Is the apartment safe? When can we move back? Will there be more quakes?

That night, all of us slept on the ground floor of the 2-storey house. The plan was that if we needed to evacuate quickly to the open, there would be less ground to cover. Most residents (crap, just as I was writing this, there was an aftershock. And although it was nothing like the first one, my heart started racing) that night slept in the open amphitheater under tents.

True enough, there was an aftershock that got the 3 womenfolk of the house up and wondering what to do at 4+ am. [At that moment, DH in XiAn, 900km away, got woken up by a shaking bed] We headed back to bed after deciding that the worst of the aftershock was over and it posed no danger. The menfolk of course slept through it blissfully unaware.


minibeanie is 9 months, 2 weeks & 6 days old