09-12-07: 23

Again in Singapore, we felt the tremors. The panic was experienced on 9/12/07, three times on 9/13/07 and the last one on 9/20/07.

On those days, if you rushed home and glued yourself to the news channel, you would read about how office buildings were evacuated (I personally ran down 16 flights of stairs on 9/12 evening), how Singaporeans posted their videos, of the fish tank water sloshing or how their lights were swaying from the Indonesia quake tremors. Locals started discussing if our buildings and infrastructure are safe enough to withstand tremours from our neighbour in Indonesia. Afterall Singapore is supposed to be in an earthquake free zone.

09-12-07: These are not lucky numbers. This is the date where the first (8.4 magnitude) series of major earthquakes striked Indonesia's Sumatra. The world's largest earthquake in more than two years has not only spurred volcanic activity near the epicenter, but reported to increase the risk of another major tremblor occuring in the region (Bloomberg).

23: That is not just today's date; but the death toll to-date in Indonesia. Adding on, more than 15,000 buildings collapsed or were damanged, and 88 wounded in Indonesia.

While we were panicking to remember how vulnerable we can be by being affected by our neighbouring country, let us not forget about mankind being directly impacted where the earthquake striked.

Not implying that Singaporeans should not panic because of what happened. If tremors could throw us of the ground, lets not forget the real loss of lives.

After all, the well-being of a group of individuals is more important than that of one single individual.