EARTHQUAKE!!

Woo Hoo, another post. Well, today was a special day so I could not resist. Today was the first day I felt an earthquake. It was not only the first time I felt one while in Guatemala, but the first of my life. Crazy I know. 

Here's how it went down:

I was with the students in a class called X-Block. X-Block is this fantastic 30 mins twice a week where we get to teach whatever we want. All of the teachers picked a topic and the students signed up for what they wanted. I am doing no-bake cooking! Some of the other teachers are doing broadcasting, knitting, crafts, and card games. So this is another class that would never go over in the US, but we think is fantastic!  And today was our first day. I was having the students sign up for the day when they are in charge of bringing the ingredients, recipe, etc when my projector starting swinging like crazy. I recall a few students pointing at the projector and hearing a number of “whoas” before I felt anything. What I felt was mostly dizzy, sort of like the feeling you get when you are back on land after being on a boat for a while. My students asked me if it was a real earthquake (not sure why as I am sure they have all felt many more than me). I told them “yes, now get under your desks.” They did so quickly and then counted to 60 as we practiced a few weeks ago. After the 60 seconds, we evacuated to the baseball field. After waiting out there for 10 or so minutes, the students were dismissed to lunch.

I went back to my classroom and looked up the earthquake (www.usgs.gov) to see what magnitude we just experienced. It was a 4.8. I am sure it is not the appropriate response, but I found the whole thing exciting and was quick to tell the teacher next door everything I had read. A minute or two after entering her classroom, she exclaimed “oh shit, here we go again” as we started shaking again. Not only did this one shake a lot harder (5.8), but it lasted longer. It probably only lasted 20 seconds rather than 10, but it felt a significantly longer. As the students were still at lunch, we only had to evacuate ourselves (much easier). We met and lined up our students and then waited somewhat patiently for the administration to give us instructions. While waiting my students told me that if there is a third it is usually really big and called a terremoto. I thought I was learning some cool Guatemalan lingo or at least a legend that had a great back story. Nope, terremoto is just the Spanish word for earthquake, whereas most of what happens they just call tremors!

In the end the administration decided to dismiss the students at 2 rather than 3, mostly because there were already a number of parents waiting outside the school to pick up their children. So that left an hour in which I was supposed to teach class. Well, lucky for me, I teach earth science! It was a great teachable moment. So we looked at maps, talked about why earthquakes happen, etc. About 20 mins into class, the students claimed there was another tremor. Well, I did not feel it, thought they were just making it up, and at this point it was pouring outside. So we did not get under our desks and we did not evacuate. Turns out the students were correct, there was another quake (4.8 again) and I am a bad teacher.

There have been two more since (4.5 at 2:30 and 4.3 at 6:30) that I did not feel, but my house is pretty solid and low to the ground. So, it is interesting that my post from yesterday was about routine and then I have a very un-routine day. I do find the whole thing interesting which I know is probably not the best reaction. Maybe it is the scientist in me, maybe it is that it is a brand new experience, maybe there is some human nature in the excitement. It does make a great story after all :)

The USGS map of today's tremors and "terremoto"