Waking up to an Earthquake

The glass windows in my room were rattling for quite some time. I woke up to check if something was wrong.. oops, I could feel the room shaking, Mom was in the kitchen preparing Coffee and she didn't feel it, maybe because she was standing. I told her "Amma, Earthquake ma" .. "Ennada Solrea???" (what do you mean?) "Ama, It is an Earthquake" I could feel the shock thru' her eyes that went wide. We woke up Dad and Abi.. we witnessed it for another half a minute.. This was around 6h30 in the morning. A mild one that lasted for more than a minute.. I woke up to an EarthQuake.

This was the 2nd time in recent times, Chennaiites have witnessed an earthquake.. we agreed that things was fine. I started to sip my cup of cholocalte drink. Mom was seriously thinking about an Emergency Plan if it would strike again.. "Shall we goto Madurai?" I started teasing her for some time until we agreed upon that "There is no escape from Nature's fury, but to just take it.." And things will be normal.

At around 8h30, we saw people running through our streets, heading west. A lot of them.. the
streets were filled with them, most of them from the Slum settlements near the beach. We were confused and rushed to the streets to find out... They told that the sea was rushing towards the city.. shocked with anxiety we went to the terrace to find out if it really was.. but things were calm from the open, I was sure It was not the kinds that we see in Hollywood movies.. was a bit relaxed, but I need to find out. Mano who stays closer to the beach told me he didn't know about the quake.. nor the water rushing phenomenon. I called up another Friend Sai, Even he didn't feel the quake. But the mad rush in our street was fishy. I thought, It might be a rumour and that the people from the shore settlements would blindly follow 'some ones' saying'. We called up friends who stay near Triplicane and Santhome... They confirmed that sea water had rushed to the Main Road on the beach and receded back in short time... okay.. don't we see that in monsoon's too? But this was different.

Abi and I were very curious and rushed to the beach to find out.. There was a terrible traffic jam, and vehicles were not allowed, we parked the bike about 1 km away and walked to the beach on RK Salai. There were police controlling the crowd, but my the camera strapped round my neck was the ticket to the beach, they thought Abi was a reporter and I was a press photographer and let us in.

We were there... the waves were kinda harsh and very strong... We could see no sand but water everywhere. Water had crossed the road and had rushed till the Inspector General's office on the other side of the Road. A huge wave hit around 8:30 am gushing water all over the settlemensts around the shores, and the 'ayodhya kuppam' on the other sides of the road. Very shocking indeed.. That was not the end..

I took a couple of snaps.. I was seeing thru' my viewfinder seaching for an interesting composition... told abi, "see there.. there is one more big one coming", and in no time, we could see a huge wave against the buildings and settlements behind the Santhome Cathedral. That was about 1.5 kms from where were standing. I clicked..

Abi was a bit afraid and the police was clearing the onlookers.. 2-3 secs after, that was in NO-TIME the water rushed to where we were standing... and I ran back with Abi.. but this was not a huge one though, but a solid one to make one run for their life. I took more snaps.. and went around the beach to check the damage. There were cars.. atleast 6 of them dragged to the pavements and fences. One was a parked on the Seats where i used sit and enjoy the breeze in the nights. A lot of fish, fishing nets, debris of small boats (kattumaram) were on the inner beach road that was flooded with water... Fishermen were the most affected, they were either searching for their loved ones or their missing property.

It was very scary in the beginning, but the situation was familiar in sometime and we could take it. Lot of rescue work were on, and the police did not want more onlookers. So after some more snaps, we decided to go back home... only to find in the news that it was a devastating Tsunami. (huge tidal waves that are caused due to sliding ocean plates) More earthquakes were trigerred in the Andaman and Nicobar Island as an aftermath of the huge on in Sumatra.

We have never witnessed sometime like this before.. a very uniqe thing that happened to Chennai and the rest of the seashore countries. Death toll is pretty high in TN, 3000 confirmed deaths and the Tsunami took with it over 25000 lives...

The number was on the rise as the sun set for the day.. I ended the sad day watching news on the Furious Tsunami that brushed away a huge deal of human lives.

An un-forgettable Sunday indeed...

TAKE CARE!