Earthquakes in The Land Below The Wind

I first experienced an earthquake when I was still in my teen, living in Sandakan. It wasn't a strong quake, but for us who lives in apartment and has never experienced it before, it was really really scary. It happens twice if I'm not mistaken, the apartment shooked and there were fine cracks appears on the wall, luckily enough the damage is minimal and we continued staying in the apartment until 1994.

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The worst earthquake that I felt was in 2015, about 6.0 magnitude. When it happened, I was at my parent's 2 storey house in Penampang. I wasn't sure that it was an earthquake at first as I only heard the door was shaking like someone is trying to force it open. As I got up from my seat to check it out, the shaking became more violent and I can't stand still, then only I realised that it was an earthquake.

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I wasn't sure what to do, I just stood there and shouting "earthquake" to alert my wife who was in the kitchen. She also just stood without saying or doing anything, but then she tried to rush out of the door to get out of the house. I told her not to go out, so stupid of me. The earthquake was at least 15 seconds, and there were several mild after shocks after that.

Recently, there was another earthquake of a magnitude 5.3 of the richter scale on the 8th March 2018. I wasn't around as I was in Sandakan for a work trip. I was at the airport waiting for my flight to Kota Kinabalu, but it was a delayed for 3 hours. When I heard that an earthquake has occured, I just couldn't believe it. My wife who was also in Steemit, has just posted about the historic earthquake that happens in 2015 about 2 hours earlier. When people at the airport starts talking about the earthquake, I began to get worried about my family.

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I quickly called my wife to check on their conditions, and I was relieved to hear her voice and that everything was ok, she told me not to worry. After that, it made me think, what are the airport's s.o.p when an earthquake has occured? Did they check the runway for any cracks? If they don't, and an aeroplane ran over it, it might damaged it's tyres, it might even burst the tyres and accident might happen. I was worried.

When were heard the announcement to board the plane, I was happy, but a bit worried at the same time. I got on board and were about to get comfy on my seat when my boss showed me his phone and said "today is the anniversary of the dissapearance of MAS Flight MH370", I was surprised and thought, "damn it! why does he need to show that to me at a time like this, while on board a plane?". I was getting more freaked out, I started to pray like there is no tomorrow.

The plane took off from Sandakan airport at around 11.20pm, and it took about 50 minutes to reach KKIA around 12.05am. Before it landed, I prayed one more time, hoping that nothing bad will happen. As the plane touched down, it was a bit bumby, then it started to slow down and eventually stopped, I was mighty relieved, and just can't wait to get off the plane. I was thinking, maybe the airport officials did check the runway, that's why our flight was delayed for 3 hours.

Earthquake is such a rare occurences in North Borneo, we should always anticipate that a greater earthquake might happen in the future. From what I know, most people here is not aware or being educate at all on what to do if it happens. I'm not even sure if the buildings and structures are built to withstands an earthquake, unlike buildings such as in Japan or Taiwan, which has histories of major earthquakes. Hopefully the government and the authorities will look into this matter seriously to avoid any major damages and the loss of lives.