I was in the drama room at Avonside Girls High when the earth began to shake violently on Tuesday, February 22. It was different from the thousands of other aftershocks that we had endured since last September.
This one came with great force. The power went out, plunging the room into darkness, and panic spread like wildfire as we raced for the exit, but the door was jammed.
For what seemed like an eternity, we fought to get out, and escaped running to the safety of open ground. I had grabbed my laptop as I ran, but I did not have my cellphone. How was I going to contact my family?
Forunately, after I had waited on the grass with the other pupils and teachers for a while, my mum eventually came.
The journey home was slow on crowded, cracked roads. More and more houses appeared to be damaged. Some seemed like they had exploded from the inside. The brick cladding and tiled roofs stripped like skin from their bodies exposing the skeleton within.
Our house appeared to have little damage by comparison but inside was a different story. The fridges and cupboards had spewed their contents all over the tiles. Pictures had smashed leaving a layer of glass over the floor. The walls and ceilings were cracked and our piano had somersaulted into the middle of the lounge.
Like the piano, my life was turned upside down. My school was so badly damaged and seems unlikely to open this term. Faced with the enormity of the damage to my school and my home, the best choice was to leave the city and to start the year fresh before it was too late.
It makes a nice change to focus on school work, rather than fearing what the next quake could bring.
- Esther Elmi is a Year 13 pupil currently studying at Logan Park High School
