LARGE EARTHQUAKE HITS CENTER OF COLOMBIA

EARTHQUAKE AND SHAKY BUILDING STRUCTURES

It was 2:20pm, I was in my pajamas and preparing my lunch. Being a Saturday, I had slept until noon, had no intention of doing anything productive until at least the late afternoon, and wasn't expecting any type of excitement. As I was scooping my pasta-sausage-cheese-corn concoction into my bowl, I started to feel some movement below my feet. "No worries," I thought to myself; our building has a faulty foundation and always moves a little bit when a lot of traffic passes by.

But the trembling of the floor didn't stop. I looked over my shoulder and saw that the door to the kitchen was swinging back and forth, hitting the wall every few seconds. The glasses on the counter were rattling. I could hear voices outside. I looked out the window and saw everything moving back and forth. The ground gave off a deep rumbling noise...."This isn't traffic," I realized, "this is an EARTHQUAKE!"

Now, I've experienced various earthquakes in my life before, including one here in Bogotá, but nothing was like this one. The others lasted just a few seconds, and were over before I realized what was going on. This time, the ground below us shook for nearly a minute, and everyone was racing out of their homes and into the streets. My first reaction was to get below a door frame (thanks Hollywood for the great earthquake emergency lessons), but then I decided that because of the poor structure of our building, it might be a good idea to go outside. After the earthquake was over, our building continued to rock back and forth like a swing.

Shortly afterwards, the news stations announced that the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale, and the epicenter was in the northern part of the state of Meta, which is located south of Bogotá. The closest city to the epicenter was Villavicencio, yet tremors were felt all the way in Medellin and Bucaramanga. The earthquake was felt in all parts of Bogotá, from Bosa in the south to Chia in the north. So far 15 deaths have been reported, and various injuries.


PLATE TECTONICS OF COLOMBIA

Colombia sits on the far northwestern corner of the South American tectonic plate. A small portion of Northern Colombia is cut off by the Caribbean plate, and to the west lies the Nazca plate. Earthquakes are not uncommon in Colombia, but hardly ever does one of any sufficient magnitude hit Bogotá. Pretty neat for someone who grew up in the middle of the strongest tectonic plate on Earth, (the North American plate), where no earthquakes, volcanoes, or mountain forming ever take place.

However, knowing that the structure of my building is crap, and that I live on the 4th floor, if the quake had been any stronger, I would probably have problems getting out. Oh the joys of living on the edge!