Earthquake in Philippines: we're okay

The earthquake was far south of here, so we are okay.

Of course, we are close to a big fault (that also goes through metropolitan Manila) so are waiting for the big one.

But we did have a pretty strong earthquake in the early 1990's.

Here, the termites make wooden houses and bamboo houses not very practical, so most folks replace them with concrete block houses... the law requires steel rods to reinforce them to prevent collapse in earthquakes.

the main problem is that our house foundation is in mud: We dug deep for the foundation and we had city inspectors check it (we had to reinforce one building when we placed a second floor on top of our garage after inspection).

On the other hand, hey,  typhoons, floods and Dengue fever are more common hazards (not to mention motor vehicle accidents), and we are not that far from Mt Pinatubo, and have our own (inactive) volcano nearby.

it's like the hysteria about cops killing drug dealers: Uh, our family is more in danger from hit jobs against rival politicians.

As for drugsin our neighborhood there were several older people nearby killed in home invasion robberies. Traditionally you are robbed and not killed, but the thieves have become more vicious when they are hopped up on drugs.