My mum was at my brother's place with my nephew, niece and their Filipino maid earlier this week on one of the days when tremors were felt in Singapore. Aunty X (kept anonymous to protect the innocent) was the first to react. She knew straightaway that her sudden dizziness had something to do with an earthquake. My mum was more interested in looking at how much the table and other stuff would shake and move but Aunty X said 'Must run!' My mum said, 'No need, lah, nothing will happen,' and Aunty X then recounted some horrific tale of how the ground split and people fell in the holes, etc. She grabbed my niece and they all went down the stairs from the 13th floor.
My poor terrified niece kept telling my mum to run faster, and my mum kept telling her not to worry and that she would see her downstairs. After all, a grandma surely can't run as fast as the 2 kids and Aunty. Actually, the tremors had already stopped by then and when the all-clear was given later and they were going back up, my mum told them she was not going to take the stairs for sure and so they went back in the lift.
To my mum, this was just one very exciting experience. She tends to approach life with a 'don't worry, nothing will go wrong' kind of attitude which comes partly from faith and also from being Singaporean. After all, she has lived in Singapore all her life and she has never known of anything that happened here in relation to any earthquake anywhere.
However, I'm starting to wonder if one day, something may happen because it seems like we are feeling tremors here more than before. I have some questions in relation to this:
1. We keep getting told that post-tremor checks on buildings reveal nothing untoward and that our buildings are built to withstand tremors. But are all buildings built with tremors in mind or just some?
2. Who knows enough to declare a building 'safe'? I think it was the security guards who gave the all-clear at my brother's place. Are they trained to check buildings for structural problems? What about the lifts? How would we know if they are safe to use?
3. Shouldn't Singaporeans be made more aware of how and when to evacuate, given that most of us have no experience with earthquakes and that many of our buildings are high-rise? If Aunty X wasn't there, chances are my mum and the kids would have just stayed in, which, apparently, was what some of the neighbours did. (I told my mum that it was better to be safe and evacuate since there's always the odd chance that some structure might become unstable or something.)
4. What about people for whom mobility is a problem? In the future (ageing population), this will be a bigger problem because we will have many elderly people in high-rise buildings and there will be many who can't take the stairs, so how?
Relief efforts and donations: Singapore Red Cross and Mercy Relief
My poor terrified niece kept telling my mum to run faster, and my mum kept telling her not to worry and that she would see her downstairs. After all, a grandma surely can't run as fast as the 2 kids and Aunty. Actually, the tremors had already stopped by then and when the all-clear was given later and they were going back up, my mum told them she was not going to take the stairs for sure and so they went back in the lift.
To my mum, this was just one very exciting experience. She tends to approach life with a 'don't worry, nothing will go wrong' kind of attitude which comes partly from faith and also from being Singaporean. After all, she has lived in Singapore all her life and she has never known of anything that happened here in relation to any earthquake anywhere.
However, I'm starting to wonder if one day, something may happen because it seems like we are feeling tremors here more than before. I have some questions in relation to this:
1. We keep getting told that post-tremor checks on buildings reveal nothing untoward and that our buildings are built to withstand tremors. But are all buildings built with tremors in mind or just some?
2. Who knows enough to declare a building 'safe'? I think it was the security guards who gave the all-clear at my brother's place. Are they trained to check buildings for structural problems? What about the lifts? How would we know if they are safe to use?
3. Shouldn't Singaporeans be made more aware of how and when to evacuate, given that most of us have no experience with earthquakes and that many of our buildings are high-rise? If Aunty X wasn't there, chances are my mum and the kids would have just stayed in, which, apparently, was what some of the neighbours did. (I told my mum that it was better to be safe and evacuate since there's always the odd chance that some structure might become unstable or something.)
4. What about people for whom mobility is a problem? In the future (ageing population), this will be a bigger problem because we will have many elderly people in high-rise buildings and there will be many who can't take the stairs, so how?
Relief efforts and donations: Singapore Red Cross and Mercy Relief
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