Safe Indonesia

So, I live in probably one of the safest places in Indonesia.  All of the terrible things that you think of just don't happen here.  No volcanic eruptions, no earthquakes, no tsunamis.  True, I live on the island that likes to decapitate people who they are having issue with, but come on, that was sooooooooooooo 1998.

I found out today, however, that I am not in the free and clear.  Last year, I was really lucky.  I experienced every Indonesia specific natural disaster that the country could throw at me, and everything was fine.  I felt my first major earthquake ( not actually my first).  It felt like my house was sitting on a pile of jello for about a minute.  Since it happened out in the ocean, no one was hurt or injured, and there was no threat of tsunami from it, now, it's just a cool memory.

Speaking of tsunami, Manado actually was hit after the horrible Janapese earthquake which happened almost exactly a year ago.  However, I was already up in the hills that day (actually looking out over the bay), and it ended up being only a few inches high.  Sounds silly now, but they never really know how strong they will be when they arrive in certain locations, and they had evacuated the downtown.  It was scary, regardless.

  Mt. Lokon went into high gear twice while I was there, pouring ash into the sky, and then actually erupting only 2 days after I flew home for the summer.

Mt. Lokon on a pretty day.

Close up of the daily steam that emits from the crater.
It is on the side of the mountain because that actually used to be the middle,
but some ancient huge explosion blew off that side of the volcano.

 The last natural disaster I faced was a landslide.  Trying to get to town one day, traffic was really backed up. Turns out the road had been covered by mud during the night because of a "small" landslide.  NBD.  Crews had already cleared one side of the road.

However, I had forgotten about this natural disaster.  Turns out, there's a lot in Borneo.  After about 2 hours of pouring rain last night, one occurred up in the hills above my house sweeping away all the power lines.

This does not bode well for my food in the fridge.  :/