Ruminations of an Expatriate

This morning at about 6:45 I noticed the door to my apartment rattling and felt the building shaking. I went out into the building passageway and asked a neighbor I encountered there if she had noticed the building shaking and she responded that she had not.

I have just read and AFP news service report that “A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 magnitude struck the Oaxaca region of Mexico early Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said.”

The USGS reports the epicenter as 23 NW of Arriaga, Chiapas at 6:50 AM local time.

This site displays a map and provides a means to report if you felt the temblor.

Speaking of earthquakes, I lived for most of my life near coastal Washington State. Just off shore is a subduction zone where the San Juan tectonic plate is forced beneath the North American plate. The friction generated by the grinding of the plates builds great force which is occasionally relieved through greater than normal movement of the San Juan plate, and, thus, begetting an earthquake.

Here are my observations of three earthquakes within a three year period.

At 6:19 the morning of June 10, 2001, while reading the morning news at my PC, I heard a slight explosive sound and felt mild shaking, followed by a lull, followed by a louder explosive sound and brief hard shaking. For the third time in slightly less than 2 years, I have experienced an earthquake.

The USGS reports the quake at a 5 magnitude and centered 24 miles below the surface, just a couple miles North of my home. So that’s two of these three recent earthquakes centered within 5 miles of my home.

This time the whole thing latest just a few seconds but the shaking seemed more intense than the shaking of the two other recent earthquakes. Shaking during the July, 1999 quake lasted for perhaps 20 seconds but was not as intense as it was this morning. While the main effect of the February, 2001 quake, centered 30 miles from here, was rolling of the earth for perhaps 10 seconds. It was quite a sensation, while standing on the earth, to feel as though I were on the rolling sea. I do not recall hearing creaking from the house framing during the other quakes, just rattling of glass in the cupboards and such; but this time the roof framing was creaking to the point that I headed for the door.

I remember that in the wake of the quake of July, 1999 I wrote:

It has been a disappointment to me, over the years, that I had never yet experienced an earthquake. Having not yet been born, I had missed the, 7.1 magnitude, 1949 Puget Sound earthquake that cracked the state capitol dome and the streets in the Olympia neighborhood of my youth; and I had left for the East coast a few years before the 6.5 earthquake in 1965.

Believe me, there is nothing like three earthquakes in two years to assuage such a disappointment.