The Earth is Shaking

THE EARTH IS SHAKING
September 10, 2010

For over 25 years, living in California, I have become more and more aware that we live in a region affected by earthquakes. When we were living in Santee, we felt the earth movements from the Whittier Quake, October 1, 1987, 5.9 on the Richter scale. Then again, we were shaken by the Pasadena Quake on December 3, 1988, 4.9. On February 28, 1990, the earth moved again; the Upland Quake, measured at 5.2.

In 1978 Jeffrey Goodman, Ph.D., published his account of earth movements especially around the Pacific coastal regions in his book entitled, “We Are the Earthquake Generation.” In the early 1980’s I was keeping a close watch of the occurrences of earthquakes, but at the same time, we lived our normal lives. We were raising our family, our two boys, serving a local church, and very involved in community activities.

The other day, I decided I would look up, in a more composite way, the occurrence of earth movements in the world. It is, I believe, a time of re-awakening for all of us. The earthquakes are occurring in sequence, like a chain of events, in different parts of the world.

On October 17, 1989, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s were getting ready to play their third game of the World Series in San Francisco, when at 5:04 p.m., the Loma Prieta Quake occurred. It measured at 6.9 on the Richter scale. Sixty three people were killed, 3,757 were injured, 100,000 buildings were damaged. The epicenter was at the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County. The double tiered Nimitz highway way collapsed and the Oakland Bay Bridge was damaged.

From 1988 to 1993, I had served the First United Methodist Church in Reseda and became very familiar with San Fernando Valley, from Sherman Oaks to Woodland Hills, from Granada Hills to Chatsworth and the cities in between. Our members lived throughout the Valley.

After we left in 1993, on January 17, 1994 at 4:31 a.m. I woke my wife and said, “We just had an earthquake.” I felt the bed shake. We were residing in Chula Vista. We had as our guests on that Martin Luther King holiday, the pastor of the Chatsworth United Methodist Church and his wife. As we listened to the radio, we became more and more aware of the devastating earthquake. The Northridge Quake, its epicenter located in Reseda, was measured at 6.7, there were 72 deaths, and it was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history--$20 billion.

This quake was more personal than any of the quakes I had experienced. We had friends throughout San Fernando Valley. One father of three children said, “I couldn’t find my glasses and there was broken glass all over the floor.” He also said, “The need for water turned critical.” One family told us, the dishes in the dishwater were not damaged, luckily protected on the racks. A couple we knew well lost their condominium; it was totally damaged. For several nights, with the after shocks, people slept outside on their lawns or at parks close to home. The Reseda Church received major damage as did hundreds of commercial buildings.

The year 2010 has recorded major quakes in various regions of the world. On Tuesday, January 12, the eyes of the world turned to Haiti, a country on the island of Hispaniola. At 4:53 p.m. local time, the 7.0 quake rocked that region. Three million people were affected by the massive disaster, 230,000 were killed, 300,000 injured, 1,000,000 people were left homeless, and there were major damages throughout the area, especially in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The earth movement was felt in neighboring Cuba, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico.

Chile is a region known for the frequency of quakes. In 1966, while traveling through Peru, I met a Peace Corps volunteer who was on her way home after serving in Chile. She said, “An earthquake occurred when she was in the bathroom and her door jammed.” From then on, she always kept her bathroom door ajar. On February 27, 2010 at 3:34 a.m. local time, an 8.8 quake lasted 90 seconds. A blackout affected 93% of the nation’s population. The quake caused a tsunami which damaged some areas of coastal San Diego and there were damages in the Tokoku region of Japan, reported at $66.7 million. This was the strongest quake since the 1960 Valdivia Earthquake that measured at 9.5.

For three years my church assignment included serving a church in Calexico, a border town of some 10,000 people next to Mexicali in Mexico with about half a million people. On April 5, 2010, at 3:40 p.m. a 7.2 quake rocked Mexico and the surrounding region. The damage was not as extensive as the Northridge Quake, fortunately. The town of Calexico was shut down from the damages, and the quake was felt in San Diego, causing a crack on the floor of the Sheraton Hotel and preventing the front doors from closing. The earth movements are no longer far way, not in time and not in geography or human relationship.

Indonesia is a nation of islands subject to quakes and tsunamis. On August 3, 2010, 26 miles beneath the ocean floor, a 6.3 quake rocked that region. On September 30, 2010 another quake was measured at 6.8, occurring at 8:52 a.m. and 236 people were killed. Many remember that on December 26, 2004, a giant quake caused a tsunami and 230,000 people lost their lives, half lived in the western province of Aceh.

This is just a partial list of quakes that have occurred this year, 2010. I googled earthquakes and found that this year, throughout the world, there have been multiple quakes. I have selected to list those quakes that were measured at 7.0 or higher. It begins from the most recent, September through January.

September 03 South Island of New Zealand 7.0
August 12 Ecuador 7.1
August 10 Vanuatu 7.3
August 4 New Britain Region, Papua New Guinea
July 23 Mindanao, Philippines 7.4
July 23 Moro Gulf, Mindanao, Phillipines 7.6
July 23 Moro Gulf, Mindanao, Phillipines 7.3
July 18 New Britain Region, Papua New Guineau 7.3
June 16 North Coast of Papua 7.0
June 12 Nicobar Islands, India Region 7.5
May 17 Vanuatu 7.1
May 9 Northern Sumatra 7.2
April 6 Northern Sumatra, Indonesia 7.8
April 4 Baja California, Mexico 7.2
February 26 Ryuku Islands, Japan 7.0
January 12 Haiti 7.0

In the 2010 listings, across the United States, there been movements of the earth. These regions include:

July 7 Southern California 5.4
June 15 Southern California 5.7
April 15 Utah 4.9
March 26 Greater Los Angeles Area 4.4
February 10 Illinois 3.8
February 4 Off shore Northern California 5.9
January 15 Oklahoma 4.0
January 10 Off shore Northern California 6.5


I have looked into earthquakes as part of my own edification and understanding. If it can help me to be prepared and aware in the event of major earth movements, then I and others can be helped. There is in this life, a spirit that moves us to awareness and consciousness of our surroundings. We are here to be helpful to others while we also learn to care for ourselves.

The world is a large world, its far reaches may not be known to us, but the field of technology and communication has brought us closer together. We feel the suffering and pain of our neighbors nearby and far away. In the depth of our spirit, God’s moving spirit constantly brings us guidance and stirs us with hunches, persuasions, and encounters.

We have come to see the world as a nexus where our spirituality, physiology, geology, and all forces are all connected. The poet John Dunn writes, “No man is an island.” And further, no one is apart from God. May we continue to awaken our spirits for each coming day.

Dennis Ginoza
Fallbrook, California