Trinidad’s 6.9 Earthquake
There are some acts of God like that 60 seconds that went on forever between 5.31 and 5.32 pm on Tuesday August 21, rocking T&T so violently with an earthquake of the magnitude of 6.9 (7.3 in nearby Venezuela), that we will never forget.
I was in a plane that was preparing to take off when there was a great rumbling beneath us. The captain informed us that ‘something interesting’ had happened. An earthquake. They’ve been coming at us with greater frequency and intensity. I thought of the 6.1 magnitude earthquake on December 7, 2016, in a high-rise building, I thought this was it, and saw the faces of people I loved, this was how you feel when you were going to die.
In St Lucia, my phone had blown up with messages of concern, family, strangers, friends. In fast-typed Whatapps they told me where they were when it happened, that it was the most frightening thing, a reminder of what was important. “I didn’t bother to take anything. I ran out in my underwear. Nothing was valuable. Only life. People I know, people I love.”
The plane took off before I knew if there were fatalities, if roughly built homes by squatters on hills and fields survived.
On the flight I thought I’ve been waiting for this since 2011 when Dr Richard Robertson (director of seismic research centre at UWI) told me we were due for the big one. We were along the same fault line as Haiti.
Dr Roberson told me then that ‘the last time we had a magnitude of eight and above was in 1843—an eight is ten times more powerful than a seven. Massive earthquakes happen like this, happen every hundred years. He said, “We are long overdue for those kinds of magnitudes.”
Massive earthquakes, Dr Robertson said, were “waiting to happen along the fault line of the Eastern Caribbean arc running through the Leeward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago.” I thought of Point Lisas. A possible calamity from oil and gas spills.
In London I checked the news—there were collapsed people on the floor with panic attacks but no injuries, no casualties, no buildings fell. Point Lisas was intact. Loss of power, of water, of telephone lines for a few hours. Some structural damage, a roof caved in. A crushed car, a crack along a wall, a road, broken glasses and tiles, photos on the floor. That’s it.
Then, the voices of friends, neighbours, family, as if the earthquake turned us inside out, so our hearts were on display, love, vulnerability, awe. I could still hear the shock as if in a chorus, “I really thought I was going to die.” “I had to hold on to a pillar to avoid rolling on the floor.”
Our people had a collective epiphany. We are not in charge. Everyone said they prayed. Even if they didn’t pray, even the most egotistical amongst us understood—we are not in charge.
Also the unmatched Trini humour, resilience, the bars in St James filling up with those who drank to life, the man who went running out in underpants holding his toothbrush and toothpaste. My father, hilarious, saying “it happened when I stopped at the red light, and stopped at the green and I drove on”.
I believe you, I said to my husband, who is a Trini, if ever there was one, with a tattoo of a map of T&T on his back, the slow swagger. “God is a Trini.”
“No, came the answer, from my Trini engineer. We were lucky.”
Haiti, I reminded him. Almost the same magnitude in January 2010—7.0—Left 230,000 people dead, 300,000 injured, and three million homeless. ‘Haiti’s earthquake was shallow’ he said, ‘at a depth of 13 km (8.1 miles). Ours was deep at 86 km (50 miles). That saved us.’ Trinidad rests directly in the path of a fault line to that of Haiti.
In 2011 I inquired of the authorities, are we prepared for a major answer. The short and long answer then was NO. Not in medical or emergency supplies, not in shelters, infrastructure, not in morgues, not in any way. In the absence of national building codes architects have thankfully fallen back on international standards. We must salute them.
Perhaps God is a Trinidadian. He’s shaken us up, saying, “Prepare.” We would be foolish to ignore this 6.9 warning that gave us a long, clear look at a very possible apocalyptic scene in our complacent vulnerable islands.