I know it's quite late to post this here. Actually I already posted it in my facebook but forgot to put here. hehehe.. so here it goes. Enjoy!
Story of my life in Padang Earthquake on 30 Sept 2009
Hey guys, I can’t afford to type like 100 times to tell my experience via MSN, YM, Skype, facebook and friendster so I will type my experiences from the time the earthquake started and how I was safely brought back to Malaysia by the Royal Malaysian Air Force.
It started when I was online playing Farm Town on my laptop. I felt strangely uneasy. It was as if something bad was going to happen but I just ignored it cause I thought it was due to my lack of sleep ( I woke up at 12 am and I was awake until 4pm). Earlier that morning at about 6 am, my heart rate was 91 and I told Sam about it. Later that evening at 5.15 pm (Padang time) sharp, I can feel a slight movement of earthquake, then it began intensify. I realized that it wasn’t a minor earthquake. The whole building was shaking. I decided to flee like a cockroach and when I reached the front door, I saw both of my housemates, Mogi and Tharshini were holding onto the door. My housemates and I could not stand still. I panickedly asked “Where is the key? Where is the key?” and they answered “No key. Faster go take key”. I was terribly panic and scared. Hurriedly I went and took the key from my room. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the key because the earthquake had scattered everything. My cupboards started to shake vigorously and vomited out the contents of the cupboard. After scouring the contents, I found my key and I rushed to the front door to open the door. I attempted to insert the key into the keyhole and it went on for probably a few minutes. (It might be just a few seconds but it felt like as if was a few minutes). Unfortunately, I failed to insert the key. Mogi, my other housemate grabbed the key from me and tried to open the door too. We could not even insert the key into the keyhole. We were trembling in fear and we kept looking up because the ceiling and roof were shaking really hard and we were worried that it might collapse anytime. Miraculously, the door handle broke. We were shouting and asking Mogi to “faster open the door, faster open the door”. Everyone was so tensed up. Thank God! At last we managed to open the door.
We immediately ran out of the house and sat down in front of our house because we couldn’t stand properly. I saw a few houses starting to collapse and the village leader was experiencing epilepsy. He was lying on the ground half conscious. I felt pity for him but we couldn’t do anything because we were in hurry. The earthquake lasted for few minutes and when it stopped, my housemate and I rushed in to take our belongings and important documents. After the earthquake, there was no electricity and water supply. Although squeezed for time, I still managed to SMS and asked my father to call my house phone. My father called my house phone and I told him what happened. He was shocked and started to panic. As I was talking to him, I cried. That must have made him worry about me more. Gosh! I shouldn’t have cried on the phone. He consoled me and asked me to follow the crowd. My phone’s battery had only 2 bars left. I was wondering how I was supposed to communicate for the next few days. I saw a few SMS from Adzfar, Sam, Ganesh, Joshua, my father, sis and others asking ‘how I was doing n whether I was safe and ok’ and all. I wanted to reply but I had no choice but to save my battery. Therefore I sent 1 SMS to my father and Sam saying that I’m alright. Sorry Adzfar. I didn’t mean to not send to you. I lost contact with the outside world as my phone battery ran out. Not long after that we headed straight to our faculty. Before that the proprietor of my house was saying “Hari Kiamat dah tiba. Ini takdir Allah. Kita memang telah ditakdirkan untuk sebegini”. I wasn’t really listening to what she was saying as that was demoralizing. The standard procedure of this type of emergency was to go straight to faculty and gather there. While we were on our way there, we noticed that countless houses had collapsed and the crowd was in an extreme panic situation. Most of them cried, some in fear and others sat down quietly not knowing what to do. When we reached the faculty, almost all of the Malaysian students were in there already. The faculty was partially destroyed.
We waited for like half an hour before we headed to a safer ground. We walked in a large group to Gunung Pangilun which, according to them, is farther from the sea. Tsunami alert was issued during that time. We walked there because there wasn’t any available transportation for us to use. Everyone was busy evacuating themselves. I still remembered that Crystal brought all of her Block 7 Paediatric notes. I envied her. Crystal, I salute u! Lol. I walked with Crystal till we reached the destination. The journey was long and tiring. Thanks to Faizal that he brought my bag in his car. I carried my life jacket in case of tsunami which at last became my sleeping pillow. When we reached Richard’s house, we were told that we will be spending the night there.
At about midnight, it started to rain. The girls sheltered inside the house while most of the guys were outside the house. I pity them since it was cold and they were wearing t-shirt only. Thanks guys for being such gentlemen. Life would be so hard without them. Lol. The conditions inside the house were so tensed and packed with people. It was worse than a sardine pack. I was so hungry. The seniors ordered fried rice from Simpang lol. It took 2 hours for the food to arrive. We had to share the food as there was limited food. I shared with Kabi. We were so hungry and ate like a glutton. After eating, Kabi and I went out because it was too packed inside. There was a fire camp outside lol. We went near the fire to warm ourselves. I was so bored since it was dark and there was nothing much I could do.
Therefore Kabi, Ashweni and I decided to go to Alen Anne’s house. We walked there with the help of my torchlight. When we reached there, I saw most of my batch-mates were there and most of them were sleeping soundly. I quickly rushed to the toilet to answer the call of nature only to be disappointed since there was no water supply there. I had to use my entire water supply for that purpose lol. Later I slept because I was exhausted. At about 4 am in the morning, there was a minor earthquake, everyone in the house started to run for their lives. Then it stopped after a few seconds and I continued sleeping. Less than 1 minute later, everyone shouted “gempa” and without opening my eyes, I started running only to find out that it was a fake one. I was like wtf! Lol. After that, we got back to our beauty sleeps. Luckily it was raining so the weather was quite chilling. Electricity and water supply had been cut off. We had to make do with the limited water supply.
The next day, I woke up at 6.20am. It was still raining outside. Everyone started to get up and leave. I quickly walked back to my house. Again, it was another long and tiring journey. I felt really exhausted and as if I was gonna pass out anytime. I quickly walked back to my house and pack important things. We had to gather at the faculty at 12 pm. I managed to use the toilet and bathe with limited water. After that I locked my room and house and went to faculty for further instructions. By that time my phone battery was already empty. I had no choice but to look for alternatives and thanks to Min Wai Han. His battery was low too but he lent me his phone to call and SMS my father. I really owe him a lot. Thank you Han! You are a good friend :)
At about 2 pm, I heard that the Malaysia government would be sending air force planes to bring us back. I was quite delighted at first but only to find out that only 80 people would be brought back. I was disappointed and sad. To add salt to the wound, they announced that those without passport couldn’t go back. That added to my misery. My passport was in Immigration Office Padang. I was supposed to go and collect my passport today but they wouldn’t let us take it. Later at about 5.30pm, they announced that they were going to bring ALL of us back to Malaysia. I was so flying high and at the same time worried since I didn’t have my passport with me. We were sorted into 3 groups. Priority was given to those who had no house and injured. I was in the second group. We waited patiently for about 6 hours. I was really starving and could eat a horse. I saw Justin, Tharshini and some other juniors eating nasi padang. I couldn’t resist the temptation and I asked Kumaran to follow me to pack food but instead he asked me to eat biscuit. Wtf. Lol. I felt like eating him right away but urghhhhhhhh. It’s ok. I just needed to wait a few more hours before I could eat nice and decent food. Have a little patience!
The environment was so dark and quiet. I leaned on my backpack and looked up at the sky. I could see airplanes flying in the air one by one. I was wondering if that was the plane that was gonna bring us back. I was so worn out and so I tried to have some quality sleeping time. Before I could manage to do so, the bus that was supposed to bring us to the airport was already there. I quickly grabbed my backpack and wanted to run to the bus. Unfortunately it turned out that it was the bus for bringing the first group of people to the airport. I was in the second group. My hopes crushed down. It took about 12 vehicles consisting of bus, ambulance and ‘angkot’ just to bring the first batch to airport. There was no public transportation available and it was so hard to find transport to bring us to the airport. Lucky for us, there were a few busses starting to operate again. Again I waited patiently and I was talking crap with Kumaran. Thanks Kumaran for lending your ears lol. I was so bored and tired of waiting. Finally, the bus which was supposed to bring us to the airport arrived and I was the first one to jump in the bus and sat. lol. I wonder what other people would have thought of me lol. The journey took about 40 minutes. I was sleeping throughout the journey. Once we reached the airport, I saw quite a number of planes. Omg! I was so delighted and started to jump around like a monkey lol. Wtf. I meant it literally.
Once I was inside the airport, I was already like a dead person. I saw that part of the roof in the airport was already badly damaged and had fallen down. There, I waited for another 6 hours to go back my own country. From the second group, they put me in the third group since I didn’t have my passport with me. It’s true what they said that ‘penantian itu suatu penyeksaan’ meaning ‘waiting is a torture’. In the meanwhile I found a source to charge my already dead handphones. Lucky for me, I found 1 port before anyone else did. I quickly charge both of my handphones followed by my other friend’s one. Soon more and more came to charge their handphones. After waiting for god knows how many donkeys’ years, we finally boarded in the Hercules. That was my first time flying with Hercules. It was so unique. During the departure and landing time, the lights were red in colour and of course it was really loud lol but who cares as long as I could go back to home sweet home safely. The army was so kind to give us food. Inside the food package were sandwich, egg, twitty bread, soy milk and a mineral water. I quickly gobbled up all the food lol. After that, I slept soundly.
Not long after that, we reached Malaysia. Awww! I love u Malaysia! We were welcomed by VIPs, immigration officers and others. I had hot tea in TUDM base. I had to fill in a special form for those who didn’t have passports. Later we were transported to TUDM mosque. I quickly got down from the bus and hurriedly looked for my father but he was not there. I called him and he said he was on his way so while waiting I had nasi lemak and a cup of tea. The food was sponsored by the government. It was so kind of them. I ate like a glutton and not long after that my father arrived with his driver. His driver was the first one to find me wtf. Lol. Then like in Hindustan movie, from afar I wanted to hug my father and so did my father. Both of us cried emotionally because he thought I would have died in that major earthquake. It was so touching and I felt so relieved to be back home after that horrifying ordeal which began on Wednesday. I seriously thank God and also my guardian angel who was protecting me. I was specced as a holy priest. (I played priest in World of Warcraft lol.). I’m relieved that I’m still alive after that disastrous earthquake and this will be my unforgettable memory throughout my whole life.
