Hundreds Leave : Cambodians in L.A. Area Flee, Fearing Quake

Fearing a major earthquake, hundreds of Los Angeles-area Cambodians are packing their meager belongings and migrating in small caravans to refugee communities in the Central Valley and outside the state, community and church leaders say.

The precise number of families who have left Long Beach and smaller Cambodian enclaves in Los Angeles and Orange counties in recent months is unclear. Community and church leaders estimate that 400 to 500 families numbering more than 2,000 refugees have left Long Beach alone since October.

The departures began shortly after the Oct. 1 Whittier earthquake and accelerated in recent weeks as rumors of an impending killer earthquake swept through Long Beach--where an estimated 35,000 Cambodians live in the nation’s largest Cambodian refugee community.

Nostradamus’ Prediction

Cambodians say the rumors were fueled by news stories about the 16th-Century French seer Nostradamus and his prediction of a devastating earthquake in “the new city” in May of 1988. The prediction was taken quite seriously in the Cambodian community, leaders say. Earthquake drills in local schools, coming at around the same time, heightened anxieties.

Sam Chittapalo, a community relations worker who acts as a liaison between Long Beach police and local Cambodians, said efforts to calm the refugees are complicated because nearly all are survivors of war and genocide. An earthquake becomes not only something to fear on its own, but a powerful reminder of their loss of country and loved ones.

“They tell me that Long Beach will be the first to collapse,” Chittapalo said. “They have a hard time thinking positively after what they have been through. They think about fear all the time. They don’t believe anyone anymore.”

Many Cambodians who never experienced an earthquake in their homeland regard the school drills and media coverage of quake preparedness as proof of the inevitability of an imminent disaster, community leaders say.

“My people are still very superstitious,” said Nil S. Hul, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Cambodian Assn. of America. “They believe in rumors. They have read a lot about Nostradamus, and they believe, especially when the media starts talking about it.

Quake Drills Cited

“Papers print Nostradamus predictions, and then city officials start conducting earthquake drills. They believe that people wouldn’t be doing all this for nothing. Even my wife believes it.”

Chittapalo said numerous visits to a 5-square-mile downtown neighborhood reveal that about 2,000 refugees have left in recent months, almost all because of a fear of earthquakes. Many are poor families with few possessions--a couple of mattresses, some clothes--that they pack into vans or trucks. Some families make the trek together.

“In the past two weeks about 100 families have left. Most have gone to Fresno, Stockton, Modesto, Oregon and Arizona,” he said. “Some have stopped the kids from going to school because of fear.”

Hul said some husbands have sent away wives and young children to live with relatives in Central Valley communities and in other states. He believes the move is temporary and many families will reunite in Long Beach once fears dissipate.

But some community leaders say entire families are already collecting public assistance in their new communities and are unlikley to return. The recent migration, they say, may presage a bigger exodus.

Ernest Velasquez, assistant director of social services in Fresno County, said he has heard rumors for months that 10,000 Cambodians are preparing to move from Southern California to Fresno County. While a mass migration has yet to materialize, county figures do show an increase of 350 Cambodians on welfare since last October.

“We’ve had 20 or 30 families arrive in the last few months from Long Beach and Los Angeles,” said Sabith Cheth, a community relations worker for the Fresno Police Department. “This summer, once school is out, we are expecting many, many more. Their relatives say they are coming.”

Kiv Tav, president of Fresno Cambodian Community Inc., said the main reason for the migration is the fear of earthquakes.

‘They Are Afraid’

“They enjoy living in the big city better than Fresno, but they are afraid,” Tav said. “They tell me that Fresno is going to be the evacuation center when the earthquake strikes.”

Outside a tattered apartment complex in downtown Long Beach where clothes hang to dry on a picket fence and any vacant hardpan is used to grow small herb gardens, My Nhem counted five Cambodian families in his complex who have moved to Fresno in the past seven months.

Nhem, the father of four, joked that he stayed behind because he thought he could now persuade the landlord to lower his $385-a-month rent for the one-bedroom apartment. Then he became serious, asking a visitor if the predictions of a massive earthquake for May were reliable.

“If it’s true, we will all move,” he said.

When told that no one except God knew the answer, he gazed skyward and shook his head. “Then we will all die together.”

A few blocks away in a tiny one-room apartment that she shares with her husband and three children, Noun Kuch said she has been unable to venture outside for two weeks because of fear of an earthquake. She and her husband, Hin, have pulled the children out of school.

“My three oldest sons were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. One was killed before my eyes, and the other two starved to death,” said the 54-year-old mother, her eyes wet with tears.

“I have the same feeling now. I am so afraid of earthquake. I don’t know where to go.”

She said she was traumatized for more than a month after the Oct. 1 temblor. When the 5.9 earthquake struck, she ran outside naked and stood shaking in a corner of the apartment complex for more than an hour.

Wants to Leave Area

She wants to leave the area, but she and her husband do not have relatives outside Long Beach and cannot afford the disruption in welfare checks that would come with such a move.

“All we want is peace of mind, but we don’t know how to get it,” she said.

Community leaders say other families have responded to their fears by keeping their children at home. But teachers and administrators have not noticed a drop in Cambodian student populations.

“We haven’t been able to verify that families are leaving in any significant number or keeping their children at home,” said Dick Van Der Laan, a spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District. “In fact, our Cambodian enrollment is up.”

Cambodians said the departures would not necessarily be reflected in school statistics because the families who have left have young children not enrolled in school.

Chantara Nop, a counselor at the United Cambodian Community in Long Beach, said dozens of families left Long Beach in 1987 after an earthquake drill at one of the local schools. He said members of two families died in traffic accidents en route to Las Vegas and Reno.

“The kids come home and tell the parents that they had an earthquake drill today, but the parents don’t understand and they panic,” Nop said.

Chhean Kong, a Buddhist monk, has been mostly frustrated in his attempts to reason with the 60 to 70 families who have come to him in recent weeks with intentions of leaving.

“I tell them, ‘Why do you believe for nothing. You don’t see American people moving,’ ” he said. “When they were in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge chased them from place to place. They have that experience, and now they feel the same thing.”