I debated whether or not to write this post. A lot of people I know (ahem, mom and K, cough cough) can be worriers. And I don't want people to worry. But I do want people to be aware. And to pray. So I'm going to tell you what happened yesterday.
I was woken up at 6 AM sharp by an earthquake. This was quite strange, as we are at a high enough elevation, we generally don't feel earthquakes. And if we do feel them, they are usually just slight tremors - almost unnoticeable. And also if we do feel them, they mean that there has been a much larger earthquake somewhere else.
The earthquake yesterday was the strongest I've ever felt in my town here. Strong enough to jolt me out of my sleep to find my bed bouncing, my ceiling fan swaying, my doors and windows rattling, and all the doors and drawers of my wardrobe opening. I quickly realized what was happening and ran outside. Thankfully, the quake only lasted about 4 seconds and didn't cause any damage here. Only about half of the people I know even felt the quake - most slept through it.
About two weeks ago, we had a tremor that was caused by a 6.5 quake in a city on the south coast. I was sitting on my couch, and I felt it move ever so slightly. I knew right away it was a quake, and within minutes, Facebook, Twitter, and several news sites were full of information. That was not the case yesterday.
I spent the first 30 minutes after the quake trying to find information. My greatest fear was that if we could feel it SO strongly here, there must have been a hugely destructive quake somewhere else. I searched everywhere. But I could find nothing.
Our students had the day off yesterday, and teachers and staff reported for cleaning duty at 8. Our goal was to rid campus of as much ash as possible. We stayed and worked until about 4 PM. Every hour or so, I checked the news, but to no avail. It was like the earthquake never even happened. Nobody was reporting on it. None of the volcanology or seismography sites had any information about an earthquake, tectonic movement, or volcanic activity. It was almost eerie how little information there was.
But we knew there had been something. Some of us had heard weird booming sounds at 5 AM. Some of us had felt the earthquake at 6 AM.
Right before we went home, ONE article was finally published on a Jogjakarta news site. It was absolutely the last possible thing we wanted to hear. The quake was caused by Mount Merbabu. The dormant volcano we live on.
Merbabu hasn't erupted since 1797, but it is classified as a Class B volcano, which is the same as Mount Sinabung. You may have seen Mount Sinabung in the news recently. It's the volcano on Sumatra that was dormant for 400 years before erupting earlier this year, forcing thousands upon thousands of people to evacuate.
Some reporters finally caught wind of what happened yesterday morning and went up on the mountain to interview people in the villages. Apparently, the quake was significantly stronger farther up, and many residents said that when they ran out of their houses, they could see flashes of lightning around the peak of the mountain and there were several booms, like cannon fire. Seventeen homes were reportedly damaged - cracked walls, fallen roof tiles, shattered windows, etc.
There was no other information offered yesterday. But then this morning, there were several more articles. The number of damaged homes has been raised to forty-five. And the geological experts are stumped - nobody off the mountain felt the quake, so it was obviously quite localized. But the seismological instruments on Mount Merbabu recorded nothing. That national head of the Center for Geological Disaster Research and Technology Development was quoted in one paper as saying, "All we know for sure is that we didn't record anything so we don't know what happened."
Is Merbabu becoming active again? Was what happened yesterday just a one time event? Was it really even caused by Merbabu at all? Why did the instruments not record anything?
All we know for sure is that we know nothing.
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