Haiti

I haven't posted on here for a long while, but I know a lot of PC people still read this, and I know a lot of you have great, good, big hearts.



Yesterday, January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake. Initially, Haiti had a 7.0 earthquake. Since the, the country has been hit seemingly nonstop by earthquakes (aftershocks) ranging from 4.2 to 5.9 magnitude.

The country is in ruins, and people testified to seeing a cloud of dust rise above the city at the end of the earthquake. The National Palace to the UN Headquarters have been destroyed. The hospital and healthcare system is demolished, the airport couldn't get any signals out, the jail has been destroyed with some escaped inmates. More importantly, the Haitian citizens are without home, food, water, health care, or power. Many are trapped under rubble and hundreds of thousands are feared dead.

Luckily many countries, companies, and individuals are pledging aid to Haiti. The country has been a poor and disadvantaged country for a long time, but this earthquake has simply put the country into ruins.

Please remember, right now the Haitians can use every little bit of aid you can offer, so please consider visiting one of these sites to help.

• American Red Cross (click to donate money, or text "Haiti" to 90999)
• Beyond Borders
• CARE
• Doctors Without Borders
• Haiti Children
• Haitian Health Foundation
• Hope for Haiti
• International Medical Corps
• International Rescue Committee
• Mercy Corps
• UNICEF
• World Hope International (to donate for Haiti, choose "Disaster Response: Haiti" from drop down menu)
• World Relief Responds
• World Vision
• Yele (Wyclef John's website to raise awareness about Haiti)

China Earthquake

I woke up and the first thing I saw, before I was even out of bed, was the 7.8 earthquake in China, just north of Chengdu. It breaks my heart and terrifies me. I have been to China twice, and I absolutely love China more than anything.  We recently were in a 5.4 quake and it was terrifying, so I can't imagine how terrifying at 7.8 one would be. And a lot of the buildings aren't built to stand earthquakes, they are old and not build with the best materials.  I saw video of hundreds of students running out of a school building/dorm....and you could see the walls of the buildings not just shaking, but wobbling in and out....like if you shake a saw--in and out in and out. It scared me so bad because it was the exact type of building I lived in in China, nearly identical.

I saw the pictures of people searching for people, running into the streets, injured, crying, cranes searching through debris. All I want is to be there helping these people. China has a huge spot in my heart and it is tearing me up knowing I can't help and can't be there to help.  I'm going to search through some websites to see if I can't find anything about donations or even sending volunteers......I just can't sit and do nothing for my China. :(

If anyone hears of anything like that, leave a comment, please!

Massive 7.8 China Quake, MSNBC

Earthquake

Um, yeah, so there was definitely an earthquake last night/this morning...at 4:45.....so they say it was a 5.4 in magnitude and its epicenter was 44 miles away from here on the edge of Illinois and Indiana, near Vincennes.....eitherway, I thought I was sitting smack on the epicenter!

All 4 of us woke up yelling to each other "What the hell is going on!?" "What the hell???" "Is this an earthquake????" while the cat is running up and down the hall freaking out and we think the dog peed from fear. Basically, our beds were shaking very strongly....and I jumped up and stood in the doorway and my youngest sister jumped up and I told her get in the doorway just in case.  The noise from the earthquake was the most unnerving and eery thing ever. You hear it, but then you aren't even sure you are hearing it...yet at the same time it is loud, very loud, and very deep. The whole house was shaking, I thought for sure the walls were crack, especially since it was built in the 60s.....you could hear stuff rattling on the shelf and as it picked up, a picture in my dads room fell off the tv and broke.  

When it first started I had no idea what was going on--seizure? am I in trouble and someone is shaking me? did I over sleep and someone is trying to wake me up? am I falling? am I dreaming? oh shit! it's a big earthquake!  They say it was 10 seconds, but it was definitely more like 30, and scary. Deep rumbling noise and your entire house shaking--including you. Today we are checking over the house to make sure nothing fell or cracked that we didn't realize at the time.

Crazy, and scary.

Update: this morning around 10:15 there was an aftershock that was 4.5 in magnitude. I was actually in the chair at the oral surgeons office waiting to get my 4 wisdoms out.  My dad (a dentist) had left the room with the doctor to look at a ct scan to see where a nerve in relation to my tooth was.  The nurse was out of the room. All the sudden my chair, the tv, and some little tools started shaking! Definitely scared me, but I sorta expected it. I had said last night and this morning that the aftershock would naturally come while I was there. Luckily, they hadn't started but my face was all numbed up.  I almost asked the nurse about it when she came back in, but I wasn't sure it was real since they had just taken me off about a 5 minute spin on the laughing gas mask, also I was too numb to really talk well...so I didn't ask. But at 11:30 when I was finished, I definitely had multiple texts about the aftershock.

Update 2: The other night...Sunday night/Monday morning at 12:45am, there was another aftershock, I was in bed and the walls and bed definitely started shaking again.  This time I just stayed in bed to ride it out, at least 30 seconds...and very small ones here and there after it.  It would've been a decent earthquake, but since it was coming after the bigger one from Friday morning, it was just a big aftershock. I'd say b/w 4.7-5, pretty decent! Still weird though.

Picture: up top you see a picture from USGS. The star is where the epicenter was, where it happened, and Evansville (SE) is where I live....so overall we were really pretty close, hence why it was still sooooo strong (we are actually in yellow too, its just not yet updated)