I felt the earth move under my feet

I have many firsts in Nicaragua and today was my first earthquake, little earthquake. I got home from work just before a thunderstorm and torrential downpour began. I was enjoying the loud booms of thunder and downloading some pics onto my computer when an especially loud boom of thunder seemed to shake the apartment and even the couch I was sitting on. At first I thought that the building had been hit by lightening, but then I realized it must be an earthquake! And I realized the loud boom of thunder must have actually been the sound of the earthquake.

I spoke to Ivan soon afterward and he confirmed it was a little quake, registering 2.5 on the Richter scale, a surface quake, that's epicenter was 4 K outside of the city. There was a pretty big quake in Honduras today and since I have been here we have often seen and heard of large earthquakes in Costa Rica and Guatemala, it is only a matter of time before a large earthquake hits here.

One of the contributing factors of Nicaragua's downfall to one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere, besides the Sandinista Revolution, was the Earthquake of '72, which hit Managua very hard and much of the "old city" was never rebuilt due to mismanagement of funds by the government. In fact, many directions here are given by prominent landmarks that were there before the earthquake, "go down to the corner where the BAC building used to be, and then go two blocks toward the lake".

Anyway, Managua is long overdue for a big earthquake. So Ivan and I have an emergency evacuation plan, "get out!" And like my dad always says, "I'll be in Idaho that weekend" referring to my worry of Mount Rainier destroying Seattle...I guess I will have to say "I'll be in the States that weekend".