On May 26th I and my mom arrived at Jogyakarta. Our first goal of this journey was to watch the famous eruption of mount Merapi. I decided to watch the mountain on the 27th morning time since the taxi driver told me that during that time the mountain view was clear. We stayed at Sheraton Hotel at night to prepare the journey.
I woke up at 5.30 AM and straight went to the bathroom to release some garbage from my body. At 5.50 AM still on the toilet seat taking my time, suddenly the floor shook. The first two seconds the shaking was gentle. However at the next consecutive seconds, the gentle shaking became a violent swing. The next 15 seconds the quake was still on, I quickly wiped my ass off and ran outside the bathroom and saw my mother sat on the bed praying in terror. After almost a minute, the swaying stopped. I and my mother spontaneously started packing and fleeing. However the door got stuck because its structure was deformed from the quake. Thus we were trapped like a stupid mouse in a cage.
Fearing the next wave of quake might come; we tried to seek help but nobody was coming. For the next twenty minutes I tried to search an escape route. From our balcony, I saw another balcony of room next door. I climbed to reach it and checked it out. The room next door wasn’t actually a guess room instead it’s an engineering room. And the balcony wasn’t really a balcony but instead a small patio that didn’t have a door. I could enter the room because there was a large hole caused by the quake that can be entered easily. I wasn’t really pay attention what the purpose of the patio was. Next thing, I helped my mom to climb over to the patio. We entered the room and passing through some rubbles and remains the quake had left. On the end of the room, we found another big hole on the wall that easily entered connecting the hallway of the hotel. So we escaped.
On the day of the quake, we spent our time mostly looking at some candis like Borobudur and Prambanan. Borobudur was undamaged by the quake since it was far away from the source. Conversely Prambanan area was badly damaged. Even before the quake, renovation was on progress since 1918. Now, sadly the International Preservation Society along with UNESCO has heavier, more frustrating, and more tedious task to fix the damage.
At the enterance
In front the hotel
A view from the city
Remains of a house
Damaged Mall
