Last night, I awoke at about 4:10 am, when I heard a click sound.    It was that sound an old alarm clock makes when it attempts to go off, but you didn’t turn the alarm on.  Click.  That’s was it, but it was enough to wake me up.

I immediately look at the clock, which is how I knew it was 4:10 am.   Seeing that the alarm was on, and that I still had almost two hours to go before it would go off, I laid back down and tried to fall asleep.  I did, however, wonder what the click was…  As I started to think more clear, I realized that my electronic alarm clock doesn’t “click” – so something else must have made it.. but what?

It was dead quiet, and totally dark.  4:12 am .. and I’m laying in bed, sprawled out on my back. getting cozy.

Then, it seemed someone had grabbed the foot of my bed and began to rock it forward and back.  It was quite violent; enough to make me think someone was in the room with me – which scared me briefly.   It wasn’t long, maybe 3 seconds later, that I began to realize that “This must be what an earthquake feels like”!  I had never experienced one before, but I had heard on the local news of a minor tremor the night before – which I had slept through.

Now the rocking was quite consistent, back and forth, not side to side.  I held on to the mattresses and enjoyed the ride – waiting to see if it would get worse and if so, I would have to run to the door frame. It didn’t increase.    Back and forth.  Rocking.  I did hear, very slightly, a low base rumble.  It was like someone was driving a train down the road – but the sound was extremely deep and faint.  I live near a steep mountainside so I thought for a moment that a landslide was coming down, but that never happened either.   At that same time all the crows in the trees outside my house took off and began to squawk – if that’s what you call it..  It sounded like Hitchcock’s “The Birds” outside.  Very creepy indeed.

So this short event lasted about 10 to 12 seconds and after a few minutes the event was reported by the USGS as being located in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan and there where no reported damage or injuries in Pakistan.

Here’s a link:  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009bkcf.php#details

I wonder how many of these I will get while here?