Had another earthquake a few days ago.
It was fairly mild and lasted less than ten seconds. It's not the first earthquake we have experienced and it wouldn't normally have much of an effect, as the epicentre was about 200 kms away and we are on top of a mountain, so by the time it reached us it had already lost most of its power.
Except the strangest thing happened.
Our cabina is perched on thin, wooden stilts about 5 metres above the ground and the force of the quake must have matched the natural frequency of the cabina's supports. As a result the physics of resonance made it rock from side-to-side quite violently and for some time after the quake has subsided.
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| I said, "I think we'll sleep outside tonight... |
I nearly spilled my beer.
Coincidentally, at the exact same moment, a workman was cementing the foundations, primarily in preparation for the monsoon that is coming. (When the rains come, and we're talking serious rain of between 3-5 metres per year, they unleash a torrent that creates a river that flows directly under our home.)
He looked a bit shaken himself, as he was directly underneath when the earthquake hit.
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Like that's going to hold
when the big one hits. |
Earthquakes should come as no surprise, as Costa Rica sits on one of the most dynamic fault lines on the earth.
It lies at a point where the Carribean tectonic plate is being forced under the Pacific's Cocus plate. As a result some ocean trench quakes just off the coast of Costa Rica have been recorded at 9.0 on the Richter scale and are among the most awesome on the planet, lifting the sea floor by tens of metres in one single, dramatic movement and raising the high probability of a massive tsunami.
Mind you, if the earth shifts with enough force to create a tsunami powerful enough to travel 300kms inland and knock the supports out from underneath a cabina, in a cloudforest, a mile up a mountain in Costa Rica...
... then there's gonna be a lot of spilt beer.
