Largest Earthquakes in 100 years Shake Southern Taiwan
Rescue workers at a collapsed home in southern Taiwan How scary is it for someone that's from a country with very little earthquake history, to experience what I did last night. I was teaching in the countryside on the fifth floor in a class filled with 34 students.
At around 20:26, the kids started shouting "DI ZHEN". I told them "No Chinese", but then I realized they were saying Earthquake. Suddenly the whole building started shaking and stirring. Everyone was seated except for me. I almost fell down and grabbed onto the white board and the nearby cubboard.
Half the kids were hysterical. The other half were laughing. In a situation like this, it gets very scary, because what do you do? Go on? Or go out? I knew it would be impossible for us all to get down in a minute, so I told them to sit still and wait it out. As soon as everything seemed okay, another earthquake shook us up and down 8 minutes later.
This time more kids looked scared and we immediately moved to a lower floor. The quakes were measured 6.9 on the richter scale, but Americans measured them at 7.1 and 7.0.
As far as I know only one person was killed and a few injured, which is a miracle concerning the power of the quakes. There was also no Tsunami alert.
This now happened 2 years after the huge Tsunami swept across the Indian Ocean.
I think that Boxing day should honestly be considered the next Friday the 13th.
posted by Marion @ 11:00 AM
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