An Earthquake in Infamy

 

A week ago I received an email with the subject: “REMINDER / BE ALERT: JULY 18, 2008, PHILIPPINES WILL GET 8.1 EARTHQUAKE”.  Maybe you have received the same warning or heard of it one way or the other.  It apparently came from a certain Mr. Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose.

Anyway, it does not matter.  That will not happen.  What I’ll be telling you now is something that really occured exactly 18 years ago.

On July 16, 1990, a devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 in the Richter Scale hit the Northern part of Luzon in the Philippines.  Too much had already been documented, told, and retold.  I want to share mine, or at least what I could recount from it.  I was in Baguio.

It was a Monday I think (read: I searched it in Google).  Around 4:15 in the afternoon.  Most likely, during any other circumstances, I was supposed to be in school.  And why not, I was in third year taking up engineering in one of the more reputed universities in the city.

There were some half-dozen universities and colleges in Baguio back then.  The more known ones, at least for me, are the University of “if you play; you pass” ; the “if you pray, you pass” University; and the “if you pay you pass” College.  Let’s just say I was the praying type.

(Cheer up citymates. You know the joke, let’s get over with it).

So for what happened, a question remains: “Was that plain luck or a divine intervention”?

On that fateful Monday, our school declared no classes because of a threat of a full-blown strike from the student body who were protesting yet another round of tuition fee increase.  If you do the math, we were on the fourth week of protest already spending more time in the quadrangle than in the classrooms.

So when the classes were suspended,  no student was in the school.  Who knows what might have happened then: stampede, fire, panic… The other schools were not as fortunate.  Several students had perished due to collapsed building and others just simply accidentally jumped to their death thinking they had a better chance than staying put.

I was sleeping when that killer quake happened and woke up on the first strike.  I was swaying while going out of the house.  When I managed to get out, I already saw some people on the roads, hysterically screaming while stores and houses start to crumble and glasses break.  Some were praying as if it is the end of the world.

I joined the panicked souls knelt on the road.  While we were kneeling and praying, the pavements started to crack and created a big fissure. Shouting and crying, we headed straight up to who knows where.  We ended up in a public school were we stayed the whole night.  Outside.

Shocked. Restless. Sleepless. Wet. It was drizzling that evening.

Photos of the devastation caused by the Earthquake in Baguio on July 16, 1990. Original pictures courtesy of www.geocities.com/lingayenbay

There were several strong aftershocks that ensued.  We can even hear the tremor before the earth actually moved.  That’s how paranoid we were.  Maybe because we were hungry.  Maybe because it was dark due to the blackout.  Or maybe we just lost our collective senses.

The following morning was a realization of what happened.  It was a clear day. And we all saw how Baguio was devastated.  The Summer Capital of the Philippines was a complete mess.  Renowned hotels and buildings collapsed; bodies buried in the rubbles; survivors searching for their losses or for food which comes to mind first;  hearts broken.

We were also isolated from the rest of the world so to speak.  The three main roads leading up to Baguio were inaccessible due to cuts and landslides.  The earthquake (and its aftershocks) had its greatest toll  on Kennon Road.  Although Naguillan Road and Marcos Highway seem fully restored, Kennon Road never recovered.  If it were a baseball player, he was in and out of the disabled list.

We went back to our grandparents’ house the day after the earthquake and began to sleep inside after two days.  Others were not as lucky as they have completely lost their houses due to collapse and landslides.  Others stayed with more stable relatives, others built their tents in Burnham Park.  Still others remained in the public schools for the next couple of weeks.  I had my share of experience helping dig up some friends who died and were buried.  It took us six days for one of  them.

Kennon Road and the Lion Head. Pass by here if you have chance when going to Baguio.

Slowly though the people of Baguio fought through it.  All of us helped one another in any which way we can.  There were no rich or poor, young or old, kings or vagabonds.  We were one.  We survived. 

Lights started to be restored, roads fixed.  Classes soon resumed.  And everything seemed to return to normal.  Look at Baguio now.  Search Baguio.  Look at the pictures now.  Visit it. Go there. And come back.  Then come back again. 

It is a great and beautiful city once more.  And no amount of earthquake shall take it away from us.

Unless the prophecy above comes true and straight in the city’s heart on Friday.

Then we will rise up as ONE once again.  THAT feeling I missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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