Last night I experienced my first earthquake of respectable magnitude. Over the past (almost) two years I have felt a handful of tremors. At first, I never really realized what was happening. It was so subtle, I just figured that I was imagining things. Last summer, as I sat on my bed and heard the ceiling creaking a bit and watched the cracks in the floor move slightly, I realized that it wasn’t just me.
According to PHIVOLCS, the epicenter of the quake was pretty much due east of where I live and it registered as 6.5 on the Richter scale, Intensity V here (near Iriga City), although I don’t really know exactly what that means. I wonder if this means that one of our local hothead volcanoes will start spouting off again. I remember, not long after we arrived, there was an earthquake and Mt. Bulusan in Sorsogon began erupting, to be followed shortly by Mt. Mayon. Who knows?
Regardless, I live far away from danger of lava and volcano destruction, the earthquake was enough to make me really notice but not enough to knock anything over, and my house is far enough away from the coast that I should be safe if any tsunami rear their ugly heads.
And now that I’ve put a little fear into everyone, aren’t you glad I’m leaving soon?