Earthquake Hoax

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Frantic knocking. Check my watch. It’s 4am. Stumble out of bed to the door, and find a stranger standing there, already knocking on my neighbor’s door.

“There’s going to be an earthquake. You have to get out of the building.”

Ama and I walk outside together, confused, a little scared. Outside I see all 80 or so students who live in the ISH, milling about in their pajamas. The especially studious ones are hunkered down with flashlights reading microbiology (there’s an exam at 9am, and yes they are that intense), while the rest just mirror my own dazed look. I look around for the night porter who woke us, expecting some sort of announcement. He’s nowhere to be found. I realize that if there is an earthquake, we are missing people. Do we attempt to find them now? Do the porters have a roster for the dorm? Who is leading this safety effort?

The questions could go on and on. And if GoogleEarth had passed over Accra (or southern Ghana) between 2am and 5am Monday morning, it would have captured the entire population milling about worriedly in the streets. The rumors were:

“It’s going to be a 9.6!”

“It’s an after effect of the earthquake in Haiti.”

“The BBC ran the story this morning and the radio is carrying it now.”

Ghana is an area known to have mild earthquakes, so no one could be sure if these rumors were totally true or false. And unfortunately, no one was actually providing any data. We didn’t have access to televisions or internet outside. The radios I heard out of some cars weren’t confirming or denying the rumors. Everyone was just passing on the story they heard via cellphone from “a friend” or “my family.” I started to doubt the whole thing when I heard the followup rumors that "Cosmic rays are going to hit Earth from Mars!" and got really upset that the person who felt the need to wake 80 students didn’t have the leadership to actually inform us of his sources, his information, or any school-wide evacuation plans. I work at a hospital here, and I thought there would be more disaster-preparedness within a medical organization….

Around 5am, we finally decided that everyone was just spreading rumors rather than fact, and went back to bed. Apparently around the same time, a government official came on the local radio to assure the general public that no earthquakes had been identified in the local region. The next morning, everyone was pretty jovial about the whole thing. Laughing at the way rumors can spread.

Still, I never found the situation funny at all. It showed me how quickly a situation can escalate due to lack of information, confusion/panic, and rumors. I’m relieved that no one was actually hurt in this massive evacuation, and amazed that cell phone rumors can carry quite so far. The whole experience showed me how disaster management can become, well, a disaster. This ‘earthquake drill’ also demonstrated just how wonderful certain things are:

(1) fire drills

(2) 911

(3) Check, Call Care!/CPR

(4) Stop, Drop, and Roll

(5) Only YOU can stop forest fires!

A little infrastructure, a little preparedness, can go a long way. I mean, the chances of me being set on fire are pretty slim, but I still know what to do: Stop, Drop, and Roll! (phew!) I hope that here in Ghana, we all take a few moments to think about how we will react better the next time a real, or imagined, disaster comes our way.

(And now to provide sources I wish someone had provided Monday morning...)

Articles on the Earthquake Hoax:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8465619.stm

http://news.myjoyonline.com/news/201001/40680.asp