Let's Learn about Earthquakes!

Photo Credit: Alaska 1964 Good Friday earthquake damage.
From the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
NOAA Central Library

The first earthquake I ever felt was in Vermont while preparing for a trip to Costa Rica. My dad and I were sitting on the couch watching the news when suddenly we felt a jolt as if a tractor trailer truck had just hit the house. We might have gone out to investigate except that the newscaster, reporting live from New Hampshire, at that same moments jumped, sat up and looked around, and said "What was that?"

We later found out that the epicenter was actually in upstate New York. Up until that point, I had thought that it would have been impossible for earthquakes to strike New England.

This happened sometime in the early 1980's about 1982.

In 1983 I moved to Costa Rica to live with my Aunt and Uncle. One Sunday I sat in a large stone church. It had very high ceilings with huge arched doorways and enormous chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Not long into the sermon the chandeliers began to sway. The minister turned white as a sheet. A lady in the front began to scream and run down the isle. Everyone looked to the minister for direction but he was too frightened to speak. My uncle grabbed the screaming lady and held her in the doorway, the safest place to be, and my aunt, who was assisting at the service, took over the role of the minister and instructed everyone in a calm voice to stand in a doorway.

In the meantime, the windows rattled, the chandeliers swung back and forth more violently and you could hear the stones of the church walls grate as they moved and rubbed against each other. The movement of the earth felt like waves or rather ripples like the ones on a frog pond as a frog slips into the water.

It was all over in about a minute. The stunned congregation ended the service with a quick prayer and all headed home to see how their homes had fared and to check on friends and neighbors.

As we passed shops we noticed shoes toppled over in the storefront windows but otherwise didn't see much damage.

Later we learned that the epicenter was about 100 miles south in San Isidro de General where the Cathedral collapsed as well as many other old homes.

Soon after that earthquake, possibly 2 weeks to a month later I was walking with my future husband along a country road when we heard dogs begin to bark and them felt the earth start to roll in waves possibly as high as a foot. These waves felt very different from the previous earthquake because of the height of the waves. The first felt like the waves were maybe an inch in height. These waves felt more like a foot.

Being outside did not feel scary to me. I had learned from hearing of the Alaskan Earthquake 20 years before that in a serious earthquake the ground opened up and swallowed buildings. I could not see that happening so I thought that this earthquake was not all that big. My fiance, a native Costa Rican with lots of experience with earthquakes felt much differently. He knew it was a big one.

There was a small cathedral across the park from us. We could hear the rocks grating with the movement of the earth. People were screaming in the church there as well. We returned to my uncle's house to find my 16 year old cousin sitting on the living room floor crying in fear. The upright piano had nearly toppled over on her and she was not even able to crawl out of the way to the door. The china cupboard in the neighbor's house across the street had toppled over and broke antique dishes that had belonged to the family for over 200 years.

My fiance quickly went home to his house to check on his family. His brother was working at a hospital on the 10th floor. The building had been built on rollers so that it wouldn't collapse but that meant that anything inside would roll back and forth as well. Patients in beds slammed from side to side in the rooms. Doctors and nurses too were thrown back and forth. This hospital was on the Pacific Coast.

The epicenter of this quake was also near San Isidro de General and continued the damage of the previous quake.

During one of these two quakes the fourth floor of the four story Toyota in San Jose building collapsed. San Jose is 100 miles from the Epicenter. Tourists from the Hotel Costa Rica, a very old, elegant hotel in the center of San Jose, came running naked out of the building in their fear. Part of the wall of a church in Bario Mexico, a neighborhood in San Jose separated from the building and that building had to be condemned. Many, many buildings suffered damage, cracked walls, etc.

These two earthquakes measured 7.0 and 7.2 on the Richter Scale. There were many aftershocks, some as high as 5.6 in the days to come. This experience has left me nervous of any movements in buildings, elevators and vibrations of large trucks. I am thankful not to have been at the epicenter.

Seismologists are engineers who study structures in order to prevent the destruction and collapse of buildings as a result of earthquakes. For children, this is one of the most enjoyable parts of studying earthquakes. Challenge your children to build structures that won't collapse when the table is shaken.

What makes one structure stay up or at least stay up longer than another?

Could you apply the knowledge you gained from an experiment with say, building blocks to another structure made from Legos? What about one made from newspapers?

Set up a table and provide building materials. Ask your children to build a structure that they believe will withstand an earthquake. Test your building by shaking the table. Were certain parts of the structure more able to withstand the earthquake than others? Why?

The last earthquake I felt was a minor 6.3 on the Panamanian boarder. We were living between San Jose and Cartago in a large open concept modern house. The four bedrooms were well separated. The master bedroom was on the first floor to the right. There was one bedroom on the opposite side of the house and two more bedrooms just above each of these on the second floor. To reach the second floor you had to go up open stairs that stretched into the middle of the cathedral ceilinged open living space, not a safe place to be during an earthquake. My three children were asleep, each in their own rooms.

I was the only one to feel the beginning of the earthquake. I bolted out of bed and woke my husband who thought I was crazy. I am not sure what had woken me. Then the bed started to roll with the waves. I yelled to the kids to go to their doorways. It was terrifying not being able to go to them. As first they didn't hear me. It took screaming to get them up and helpless not to be able to hold them. This earthquake just kept rolling and rolling. It seemed to go on forever. When it finally stopped we met in the living room to watch the chandeliers sway.

In the morning we discovered that the epicenter was on the Panamanian border and that only one person was killed. Though the quake occured on the Atlantic side of Panama, a surprising amount of damage was done to a town on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.

A strong earthquake shook the border of Costa Rica and Panama