We just felt another aftershock at about 7:45 pm tonight (Wednesday -- that's a full day and a half past the big earthquake and tsunami). I feel my heart stopping with every aftershock. I think it is especially hard on Emma and the other children who fear another big one.
It turns out that there have been 52 earthquakes in our area the past two days! This map from the USGS earthquake center shows them all, with each one registering 5.o to 6.0 on the Reichter scale. The red one is the most recent one we just felt less than a half hour ago. We have obviously not felt all 52 of these, but enough to keep us all on edge.
I have so much more to write and pictures to post, but exhaustion is setting up. Both girls were awake last night at various times. I hope to get more up soon on the blog between my fulltime gig as a mom and keeping up on my emails and phone calls. Today we saw the devastation on the other side of the island (Leone and surrounds) and it is just as bad as Pago Pago. Paul spent his day assisting in the efforts in Pago, including scuba diving to look for victims on a yacht that sunk and setting up cell phone and internet connections at a secondary National Park site. Some help from the US has already arrived and we are expecting much more tomorrow.
Here is another map from the USGS showing the full extent of the water generated from the tsunami. You can't really make out our islands, but we are NE of New Zealand, just above the red area.
