When the first quake hit, my colleague Jacintha and I were hangling over who gets to pay for coffee at Qiji. My phone rings and it says IFA Yazid (another colleague), I hear him panting on the other line:
"Rina where r u? We're evacuating the building, there's been an earthquake!"
I immediately went on high alert, recalling that week in Nias Island where we had worked 20hours on the earthquake devastation of the island.
"Will I be posted out to wherever the earthquake is?" "Who will take care of Arissa when I go?" "How will she cope without me?"... questions popping in and out of my head as I turn to my boss Joe and told him. A seasoned news cameraman, he immediately got on the phone for deployment news. I felt an enormous anticipation, hoping and not hoping to be sent there. No one knew where it happened yet and the phone lines were jammed up from people calling here and there, searching for answers.
We went back indoors after 20 mins (standard quake procedure, says Joe who has lived in Japan) and I went to the USGS website for some information.
Epicentre: Padang
Magnitude: 6.6
Tsunami threat: negative as quake happened under land
When the 2nd quake hit, I turned to Joe and stared at him wanting to get an affirmation before I hit the panic button. He looked back at me, then s-l-o-w-l-y the realisation dawned and he ran into the gallery and told everyone to evac. In the meantime, I could REALLY REALLY feel our 1974 building swaying and saw Anthia and the rest of the BBC people hitting the stairs. I fled shamelessly jumping 2 stairs at a time, clutching onto Lawrence. All I could think of was "You've been in worse situations than this! Why are you panicking?" and the answer to that is sweet and simple- my daughter. I have a baby who needs me and if anything happened to me now, what will happen to her?
So here I am awaiting news of deployment, hoping that there aren't too many deaths to interest those in London.
NB: Today Arissa has learned to laugh @ 7.30am. And I mean a full throttle laughter, not the chuckles she usually gives out.