If you've ever been unfortunate enough to find yourself smack in the middle of a full-blown earthquake, you'll be well aware of just how terrifying it is. Most of the time, you have a split second to make a snap decision on what to do, and where you are in that crucial moment can mean life or death.
Most people who have experienced this sort of natural disaster tend to be on land; I know that when I found myself in a large-scale earthquake, I summoned my movie knowledge, moving away from streetlights and utility wires and heading straight for open space. But what if you can't do any of these things? What if you had no option but to stay where you were? What if you were trapped underwater?
We got the answer to our question when a group of divers captured a terrifying video of the earth shaking underwater during an earthquake in the Philippines back in April. The divers involved were conducting a technical training exercise in shallow waters near Mabini, Batangas in the Philippines, when a 5.7-magnitude earthquake hit earlier in the year.
Uploaded to Facebook by Jan Paul Rodriguez, the nightmarish footage shows the seabed moving up and down and objects in the water violently shifting about, while the divers helplessly swim. In addition, sand and bubbles are seen rising from the bottom of the sea while fish dart around in the debris.
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Thankfully, none of the divers were hurt and they were able to call off the exercise and leave the sea uninjured. However, the video exemplifies the ferocious wrath of Mother Nature and the idea that, once a natural disaster is on course, there is no avoiding it.
Speaking about the incident, Rodriguez told Newsflare:
"The dive was planned for 42 meters and 20 mins bottom time, during our descent we encountered the underwater quake. It felt like there was a huge propeller of a big boat turning around directly above us, we heard underwater the trembling of rocks under the ground and we felt the shock wave, it hurt our ears, feeling heavy breathing and sudden changes in pressure. The seabed pumped up and down immediately followed by a strong shaking of the ground and the small rocks falling.”
The earthquake was one of several that occurred in the area back in April and was later dubbed as being a part of the "earthquake swarm" - an event where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time - that took place in the Philippines.
Renato Solidum Jr, the concurrent director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), described an "earthquake swarm" as being "a series of quakes without a distinct or significantly large earthquake." Explaining the science of the situation, he said: "The fault has no surface manifestation. It’s moving gradually. It’s better that way – that it moves slowly – because it would be more destructive if it moves abruptly."
Although in the end it was better to have many small earthquakes rather than one big one, it meant that the natural disaster went on for an excruciatingly long time. The earthquakes persisted in the Philippines from early April until mid-August, affecting the country's Batanga province and other nearby areas. But fortunately, according to reports, in spite of the force of the continuous earthquakes, the natural disaster only managed to injure six people.
With never-ending earthquakes and several tropical storms, 2017 was a tough year for the Philippines. Hopefully, 2018 will be a safer one.
