Natural disasters have been part of our lives ever since. It shaped our history, our culture, our persona, our perspectives.
--==o(0)o==--
The century takes its last decade when I first experienced nature's wrath. It was an Independence Day celebration, but it ended up that the Philippines turned out to be a colony... of ash. I was busily toying with the miniature cars that day, when my five or six-year-old eye saw all the furnitures shaking, the family pictures in wall frames swaying, the lights flickering.
"Mama, bakit gumagalaw yung mga frames?"
"Anak, lumilindol. Pumutok na ata ang bulkan."
"Ano yung bulkan, Mama?"
I can hear people rushing towards the clearings outside. Screaming.
"Pumutok na! Pumutok na!"
"Katapusan na ng mundo!"
All I can hear thereafter was my mom praying, clutching my young body into hers. When we came to a clearing, a basketball court some paces away from the house, I can well remember seeing that cylindrical column of gray cloud billowing from the north. It was high it literally touched the heavens.
Days after that Pinatubo explosion, it felt like noontime didn't want to show up. It was always twilight and late afternoon. We come sweeping inches of ash and dust at our roof in the fear of it collapsing should a few more inches of gray material pile up on it.
"Mama, bakit gumagalaw yung mga frames?"
"Anak, lumilindol. Pumutok na ata ang bulkan."
"Ano yung bulkan, Mama?"
I can hear people rushing towards the clearings outside. Screaming.
"Pumutok na! Pumutok na!"
"Katapusan na ng mundo!"
All I can hear thereafter was my mom praying, clutching my young body into hers. When we came to a clearing, a basketball court some paces away from the house, I can well remember seeing that cylindrical column of gray cloud billowing from the north. It was high it literally touched the heavens.
Days after that Pinatubo explosion, it felt like noontime didn't want to show up. It was always twilight and late afternoon. We come sweeping inches of ash and dust at our roof in the fear of it collapsing should a few more inches of gray material pile up on it.
--==o(0)o==--
The name of the typhoon was irritating, Rosing. Sounds like an old lady in the marketplace shouting at everyone who passes by to catch the attention and take a peek at her veggies. Like the name, the typhoon was really irritating.
Our half-constructed home was the only elevated house among the vicinity. Naturally, our welcoming sanctuary became the shelter of the flooded families. Relatives to be exact.
The windows then were of no glasses but sack, and the rains come splashing through our sleeping faces one morning. There were no doors, but movable pieces of plywood to separate the furnitureless interior spaces from the outside havoc of rain and gusts of winds. The very few pieces of furnishings upstairs came being pushed back and forth due to the ever-changing winds that splashes rain drops inside the deck. There was few food for the multiude that currently resides.
Our half-constructed home was the only elevated house among the vicinity. Naturally, our welcoming sanctuary became the shelter of the flooded families. Relatives to be exact.
The windows then were of no glasses but sack, and the rains come splashing through our sleeping faces one morning. There were no doors, but movable pieces of plywood to separate the furnitureless interior spaces from the outside havoc of rain and gusts of winds. The very few pieces of furnishings upstairs came being pushed back and forth due to the ever-changing winds that splashes rain drops inside the deck. There was few food for the multiude that currently resides.
--==o(0)o==--
After Milenyo battered Manila and the classes resumed, the countryside I saw was brutally devastated. It was the first time I saw gigantic signages fall to the ground like soldiers falling back from a war. There was one that fell into a bus along EDSA near MRT Magallanes and worse, one that fell right into a HOUSE! Somewhere in Pasay, it think. It took weeks and even months to restore the havoc, and the sight of the havoc made it hard for some of us to bear, but we have to be stronger for the less fortunate. There may be worse scenarios than these, but these are surely worth remembering and conquering.
--==o(0)o==--
Then again, most of us felt that sudden motion. Yes, that shudder. An earthquake. A big chunk of land mass has been in an unrestful pace that millions felt the tremors. Its was past lunchtime yesterday when a magnitude 3 earthquake struck Manila. I was turning the tv on to watch the boring noontime shows when the floor shook and the house cracked.
Then here comes hysteria; panic; heaven forbid, pandemonium. News flashed people rushing outside buildings. The power of the earth turns out to be so powerful that emotions and minds of the people are sometimes defied in the peak of the events.
The Baguio devastation of 1992 and the tsunami of 2004(?) were among the worst manifestations of an earthshake. Not a very good sight or event to remember, but this became the standard to be the worst to be prepared for. Ever since, everyone came weary when an earthquake strikes, because it is the aftermath that is being prepared for, not the earthquake itself.
Then here comes hysteria; panic; heaven forbid, pandemonium. News flashed people rushing outside buildings. The power of the earth turns out to be so powerful that emotions and minds of the people are sometimes defied in the peak of the events.
The Baguio devastation of 1992 and the tsunami of 2004(?) were among the worst manifestations of an earthshake. Not a very good sight or event to remember, but this became the standard to be the worst to be prepared for. Ever since, everyone came weary when an earthquake strikes, because it is the aftermath that is being prepared for, not the earthquake itself.
--==o(0)o==--
But then, when the worst of the times has come, a few displays extraordinary heroism and courage, that shines even at the most hopeless cases. It is in this times that unity and the will to survive drives us to do something that we never dare doing before. It is as if God strikes us and holds us at the same time.
After the battle for survival has restored us to our normal lives, cherish the plot. Memories of these events and the story of our survival will surely be an inspiration to others, may it be big or small.
After the battle for survival has restored us to our normal lives, cherish the plot. Memories of these events and the story of our survival will surely be an inspiration to others, may it be big or small.
