Plaster dust fell on his face and this time Cusack knew the shaking was a real thing. His eyes opened on an aftershock and the quite unmistakable movement of the wall overcame the dizzyness from the raki, whose empty bottle he still cradled like his lost love. More dust fell from the ceiling, and coughing, he lunged himself up  towards the balcony where the din of traffic and shouts made a ceaseless roar. The streets in every direction were congealed thick with cars and crates, etuks and scooters, the humans fast flowing into any available space as they fled buildings holding crates and bulging sack and kids and pets and prized possessions aloft. The shouts were louder than the car horns briefly, and then, a crack, and another tremor. He checked his display: he he was in a building that could withstand four-to-five times worse than this, but no-one really knew what was coming next. He had 300 unread alerts, 15 warnings and two more copies of the code red alert which he’d already seen the night before. “Get to the highest ground, immediately”.