A digger demolishes the remains of a collapsed building in the Sumatran city of Padang after a 7.6-magnitude quake toppled buildings in the area late on September 30. (Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images)
Johnson Chandra tapped out that brief phone text message to his father, 900 km (570 miles) away in Jakarta, as he lay entombed with his wife in the rubble of their home. It probably saved their lives.
Like many of the Indonesian city of Padang's 900,000 residents, 30-year-old Chandra had grown used to the regular tremors that rattle the port city, which lies above the "Sunda Megathrust", one of the world's most active faultlines, along the Pacific "Ring of Fire"
"At first I thought, 'Oh it's just a small one'," said Chandra, who was in his home above the pharmacy he owns when the four-storey building began to rock.
In fact, it was a 7.6 magnitude quake so powerful it shook buildings hundreds of kilometres away in Singapore and Malaysia and devastated a 100-km (60 miles) area of Sumatra's western coastline.
"The ground kept moving so I tried to run outside. Then I remembered that my wife was still on the second floor, and I turned around, heading to the stairs," he said.
"As soon as I stepped my foot on the first step, bricks rained on me, and I couldn't stand, I was swaying, losing my balance. Within two seconds, the whole building crashed, the third floor became the first floor. Everything went dark then."
Chandra, who ended up beneath a door holding back the fallen masonry above, tried to call for help on his mobile phone, but the signal went dead.
"I tried to call people up, my family, my friends, my relatives to no avail, and I was desperate. But I suddenly thought about texting, so I texted my dad to let him know where I was," he said.
"Later I heard people coming. So I tried to make a sound. My wife kept shouting 'help', and I found a small nail and started banging it. They finally found me. Slowly they broke concrete around me, and I was later rescued 10 hours after the quake."
Neither Chandra nor his wife were seriously hurt, lucky survivors of a disaster the United Nations said may have killed around 1,100 and left thousands more trapped under the rubble.
"For now, I am still scavenging the debris, trying to find clothes, or whatever left that can still be useful," he said. "My family and I have enough food, but I know that many other in the city still need help."
