The Earthquake

There was a big earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand a couple days ago. I wasn't paying any attention to what they said about it on the news the first time. However, after hearing that there are several Japanese people still trapped in the rubble, I keep listening intently to the news. It has been more than 72 hours since the Japanese international students were said to still be missing under the building. The news breaks my heart. How bad were their families devastated by the news...? Just thinking of their feelings gives me pain.

I was an international student once.
I know "time" and "place" were different in my case, but it could have happened to me.  I took off from my country with hope and I was so excited to go somewhere new. So I can tell those missing people felt the same. We never know or imagine such tragedies happening to us.

In 1995, we experienced an outrageous earthquake in Japan. I still remember the morning of that day. I was in Yamaguchi-ken, about 450km away from the epicenter, so I actually didn't feel the shaking. But when I went to school, I heard my friend's grandma had dead in bed by the fore-shock from the quake. At that time I was taking geology, me and my teacher calculated the force using a formula and knew how bad and severe The great Hanshin earthquake was. The remarkable numbers on the paper crushed me and all my classmates. we were shocked by the quake all over again.

May they find more people in the wreckage before time runs out.
Nothing I can do now, but pray.