The earth did move for me!

The Solomon Islands registers about a dozen earth tremors a day. Most of these are too subtle to even be felt, however with such a high frequency significant ones still occur regularly. They are not all the same sensation either. Some are very sharp and others a gentle movement.

A week ago I was in the toilet when I felt a distinct wave move under me like a burrowing mole in a dDisney cartoon (no that was before the Dengue). Some days before that, I was reading a book by the pool at the hotel when I felt what I assumed was a person walking towards me on the timber decking. When I looked up there was no one there - another tremor. Soon after I arrived there was a sudden jarring of my hotel room like a car backing into the tall pylons on which the front of the rooms sit (the hotel is so steep we get to our rooms by cable car).

Today I was about to go to sleep between night shifts when I felt a doozy. The first indication was a teaspoon on the bench opposite me bumped several centimeters and fell on the floor. I was lying on my side and in seconds I was being gently but forcefully rocked back and forth so much I was nearly rolled on my back, I had to brace myself. It was like someone was trying to repeatedly lift one side of my bed up. Clothes swayed in the open wardrobe and the louvre windows rattled closed. This went on for about 20 seconds. Then it started again but this time like there was a jack hammer being pushed up under the floor. Where before it was a slow ryhthmic rocking, now it was a rapid shuddering. Given the precipitous slope the hotel is on I had mad plans for such an event. I was going to run for the back door and step our onto the bank to avoid sliding down the hill in my room. When it actually happened I was so curious and terrified and amazed I just lay there and watched everything happeneing. Footage of earthquakes gives you no indication of exactly how much you can really see everything moving.

When I got to work tonight I asked my Ambualnce driver, Sossimo, if that was a bad one. He told me it wasn't too bad because there wasn't any thunder. When big ones occur (anything under 6 on the richter scale is considered a tremor here) you can hear them coming like thunder. He also pointed out that its only bad when people die. In April this year a quake casued a local Tsumani which killed dozens and left many more homeless.