A Collapsed Building

One earthquake.
More than a thousand people dead.
About 3000 people missing.
Thousands of people lost their loved ones.
Thousands don't have a place to stay.

And it all happened in Indonesia - our neighbour.
So near, yet, thankfully, far enough for us not to feel the effect of the disaster.

If you are one of the ones who follow the news closely (or if you live in Ipoh), I am sure you would have heard of the building collapsing a few days ago in Ipoh.
It is literally next to the hospital, just walking distance away, but I only heard about it the next day.
And today, I passed by the place (on the way to buy food) and saw the building for myself.

For some reason, I felt sad, especially thinking about the 2 people who died in the collapse.
It was like a shot out of a movie, the building crumpled down like that.
Really a sad scene to see.

I can only imagine what it looks like in Indonesia right now.
If one collapsed building looks so sad, imagine a whole town of collapsed building, no electricity, no clean water, no food, no shelter and dead/injured people everywhere.
All we do is read about the news, feel sorry for the people who are there.

But imagine if you are there.
Imagine being one of those who lost everything in the quake.
I tried, but I can't. Or maybe I just don't want to.
Why would I want to make myself feel sad, right?

It is really quite devastating, the fact that so many people died.
I often wonder..what do people think the few minutes or seconds before they die.
In this case, who knows how many people were trapped for how long before they died.
What was running through their mind?
Did they know they were going to die?

Those people who died - who knows what plans they had.
It is actually worse for the people who survived - to have to live through the loss of a loved one, loss of all their belongings, having to start life all over again.

And to think, this all happened just about a thousand kilometres (maybe more, maybe less) away from us.