By Lynn Lee
Indonesia Correspondent
lynnlee1@sph.com.sg

 

JAKARTA

THERE'S a crack running down the wall right outside The Straits Times office, and it sure wasn’t there this morning.

But thankfully, it seems to be the only visible damage to our 14th storey office, after a strong 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck off Java island, around 200km south of Indonesia’s capital.

The crack in the wall outside The Straits Times Jakarta office after the earthquake. ST PHOTO: Lynn Lee

Here in our four-person office (with three correspondents and our office manager), we felt the tremors from 3pm.

We were in the midst of writing articles when the windows began rattling and the ground trembled.

After nine months in Jakarta and hearing stories about people dashing down 20 flights of stairs in past incidents of earthquake tremors, I knew a "gempa" (Indonesian for earthquake) had struck again.

My colleague Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, whose cubicle is next to mine, looked out the window and saw people trickling out of a neighbouring office building.

Just then, the tremors became more severe and our building began to literally shake from side to side. A few steps away, the television remote control that was on the desk of our colleague Salim Osman, fell onto the floor.

Wahyudi and I – following some tips recommended on the US Department of Homeland Security’s website – dove for cover under an unoccupied desk. The ground kept shaking and I began reciting my prayers under my breath.

The tremors seemed never-ending. It was probably 20 seconds later when, increasingly queasy and nervous about my own mortality, I asked Wahyudi if we should make a dash for it.

Together with Salim and with our office manager Didik close behind, we grabbed our Blackberrys, mobile phones and wallets and stumbled towards the stairwell. There, the other journalists and office workers who occupy our building were already making their getaways.

When we finally made it out into the light, some 200 people – I saw a lady whose shoes were probably still under her desk -  had already gathered at the foot of our building.

They were spilling out into the street, along with employees of the soon-to-be-opened Mandarin Oriental Hotel, who seemed to be in the midst of a training programme, going by their pink and green t-shirts that read "I'm a fan of Mandarin".

People were trying to call loved ones and friends but the phone lines were down. Soon though, the word spread that the epicentre of the quake was in the Indian Ocean, and had triggered a tsunami watch.

On returning to our office about 40 minutes later and after seeing the crack, we realised from various news reports that the damage was worse elsewhere.

Among the incidents: a school collapsed in a village near Bandung (a two-hour drive away from Jakarta) and dozens of buildings crumbled in Tasikmalaya, which is around 140km away from the epicentre.

Two hours after the first tremors were felt, people are still shaken, fearing more aftershocks.

As my colleague, Straits Times senior writer John Mcbeth, who has been in Indonesia for 16 years said to me in an e-mail: "As far as I can recall, it was the biggest since I've been in here and probably only second to one I experienced in Manila in 1990 — on the 17th floor of an apartment building."

Read more: 7.4 Java earthquake kills 15 people