Earthquake News 3

Given a choice, Kathy and I have decided we’d much rather go through cold weather or a blizzard then an earthquake. We’re not talking about a major quake, we have no concept of what’s going on just 30-50 miles away from us, we’re talking about 6.2 on the Richter scale while the major quake was 7.8 (I think). Today we experienced a couple of minor tremors but in the back of your mind you keep wondering if there’s another big one coming. If we knew what was going on in our city it would really help but there just aren’t many sources that speak English. We quite stressed and have lost our appetites.
Yesterday’s joy for Steve was a bout with Montezuma’s Revenge, better known as the Cramps of Confucious. A very difficult thing to deal with when there’s no bathroom available. Fortunately our apartment was given the all clear and by morning he’s feeling better and very grateful for PeptoBismol.
The word from our friends is that the water is going to be turned off for a few days. Apparently the water supply was contaminated with some chemicals from a couple of industrial plants … at least that’s what we’ve heard. The rumor that this was going to happen has caused container we have with water, some boiled for cooking, some just for basic hygiene, we decided that we should get some water ourselves so we walked the 25 minutes to our local supermarket to find it more crowded than it was during the New Years festival. We went to a couple of other stores and found that their supplies of water and juice were completely gone. Off we went to the fruit market to get some apples, oranges and bananas knowing that we could get some liquid from them. As we returned to our apartment lobby we found an SUV delivering bottled water wrapped in packages of 24 to the small, (think walk-in closet), convenience store located there. We were able to buy a package at what was probably a premium price based on supply and demand and possibly that we are foreigners. What does it matter, the water, which we feel we really needed was delivered to our front door and we’re now set.
Another trip to another supermarket for bread found the shelves empty. However we were able to buy a couple of packages of rolls that were fresh out of the oven. They were being grabbed up as fast as the two clerks could put them in packages. You would have been amazed at Kathy’s boldness.
We’ve been told that we will not be working at our office tomorrow, however, we will leave our selves available to travel to the company where we teach English. If they want us we think it would be good to have something to do and also to share the common experience we had during the quake on Monday. After we eat some supper we’ll be heading out to take some pictures of the tents and shelters around the community. Many people are not going back into their apartments yet. I would guess that on Monday night more people slept in parks and on the sidewalks than slept in their own beds. Those people that have cars slept in their cars. We have been sleeping in our apartment but have an emergency kit ready at hand in case we need to evacuate.

Thursday Morning: when we returned to our apartment after a long evening walk we were surprised that the gas had been turned back on and we were able to take our first warm shower in a couple of days. During the night we did not feel any tremors. Also we are hearing more airplanes landing and taking off and are hoping that the airport is open to commercial traffic again.