Canwest Digital Media

“The first full day after the earthquake had come and gone with many tense moments, and the growing sense of what has gone on around us. Even though the University here has declared the student dorms safe for return, the Chinese students seem to have decided on their own to stay clear of many of the buildings. Most of the green space, recreation space, and any space that keeps the rain away have become makeshift tent cities where students have taken shelter. Some people have tarps, but most are making shelters from anything that is available, including bunches of umbrellas. It is becoming clear that we were relatively lucky compared to people even within 20 minutes from here.

“We are indoors tonight, mainly due to the fact that it is cold and rainy outside. We are all on the second floor of the International Residence, a short run down the stairs to the door, which opens into a courtyard. We have made this run about 6 or 7 times today when aftershocks have hit. Strangely now though, when the tremors are small, we all just congregate at the top of the stairs and talk about how this particular shake-up doesn’t require the run down the stairs.

“Another interesting thing we have figured out is that we cannot trust ourselves to detect the tremors. This is mainly due to false alarms, which is something we are all experiencing, particularly when we lay down to try and nap. A more reliable system we have devised is to place a glass (or a bottle) of water on the ground or on a desk whenever we are in our rooms, or anywhere indoors. The tremors cause very clear ripples in the water, and so it has become a bit of a joke among us now how much time we spend staring at water.

“It has also become clear that sitting and waiting is not helping anyone. Tonight we decided as a group that tomorrow morning we are going to downtown Chengdu to donate blood. My hope is that contributing to the relief effort will give us a sense of power in a situation that has led us all to feel quite powerless.”

Here are some more blogs writing about today’s earthquake in SW China.

Oriental Observations

I was at home with Katie and of our students just sitting on the couch in front of the window. My first thought was “Wow, the wind is really strong.” Katie thought a rat was under her chair for a second. Then we noticed the living room light fixture swaying precariously (I don’t think that fixture will survive much more shaking). What we felt in Yichang wasn’t strong enough to do any damage; however, in Sichuan province (to the west a few hundred miles) there are hundreds dead, thousands injured, and many people still trapped under collapsed buildings.

What’s New

At about 2:45 today our building started swaying. Three of my quilting students were still in our apartment when one of them said…”I think the building is moving”. And…it was! The light fixture over the sofa was swaying back and forth and it felt really weird. Our entry door was open and it started making a strange sound against the door frame and the whole room was rocking. We were not shaking….just rocking. The rocking/swaying lasted much longer than a normal earthquake. ….So….at the time this was happening we were not sure if it really was an earthquake or some other strange thing happening to the building. Yikes!!! We decided we should get out of the building so we rushed into the stairway and walk down 36 floors.

stephanieandcodyinchina

We felt the quake today on our way home from Cody’s university. We were riding the 38 bus and our fellow companions were just as baffled as we were, as earthquakes in Chengdu are NOT common. The shakes we felt were small, (think grocery storefront kids ride) and we were surprised by how alarmed everyone around us was. All the buildings in Chengdu basically threw up their inhabitants into the streets which were a complete free-for-all that we got to experience when we got off our stranded bus and took to the streets. We ended up walking the 2 hours home as the traffic was completely grid-locked!

Our Life and Times in China

Don’t know if you heard, but there was a 7.8 earthquake here today. It was in Chengdu, though, so only a little movement was felt here in Beijing. Jack and Jed had to use their knowledge from the earthquake drills they’ve done and then were evacuated from school for about 45 minutes

Mark’s China Blog

Jackie and I were in my apartment when we started hearing the closed windows banging like the wind outside was howling. A few seconds later my apartment building started swaying. Jackie and I ran to the bathroom of my apartment. I told her to stand in the door frame since I remember from early elementary school that that is the safest place to be in an building during an earthquake. My recently purchased coffee plunger in the kitchen fell off the counter and shattered. A few other things fell off my walls.

Things kind of calmed down but then started up again. We were walking around the apartment trying to find our shoes so we could go outside. At this time, it felt like walking on a cruise ship on a choppy sea. It wasn’t like I was about to fall over, but I did kind of hold on to the walls to keep my bearings.

After the swaying had completely stopped, we walked down the five flights of stairs to the ground floor. I heard hordes of screaming children from the elementary school behind my apartment complex. The children’s wailing made this descent down my stairwell a rather surreal experience.

Jackie and I went outside where a large group of people had already congregated. Everyone was frustratedly looking at their cell phones and trying to use them to no avail. The cell phone network had gone down. It was kind of strange to look at around at scores of people and not see anybody using a cell phone. In China in 2008, this is a rare site.

My Thai Adventure!

Well, I never thought I’d say this having had first hand experience – but earthquakes are scary.

This afternoon around 1.30pm I was sitting quietly at my desk, contemplating how much longer I could put off asking a colleague what on earth his customer was talking about when I noticed a strange, rhythmic creaking noise in the office. I looked around and no one else seemed particularly bothered, so I thought nothing of it and went back to studying my fingernails. Then I thought I felt a bit busy as the room seemed to be moving a bit. And that’s when everyone else looked up and started to look a bit pensive.

No one actually got out of their chair except the boss, who went to look out the window. There was a strange sense of calmness amongst everyone. I had not twigged what was going on yet, but the boss said “yep, it’s an earthquake”. I thought he was joking initially, but then the building started to sway and it felt like being on a rowing boat in a storm. I stood up and staggered back a wee bit, and we all gathered up our bags and congregated in the hall outside.

What do you do when you are on the 24th floor of a swaying building in an earthquake? I would not immediately have said get in the elevator myself, but that is what we did. I have to say that is when I started to panic slightly. There were about 15 people squeezed in and it shuddered and shook all the way down as the building swayed. The building management had not yet sounded the alarm for evacuation, but as our boss had noticed what was happening, we were a step ahead of the crowds. I wondered where we would go as there are nothing but giant tower blocks all around. There is no safe haven in downtown Bangkok, it seems. So we trekked outside and along the road a bit to stand outside a different very tall building and discussed what to do – at which point all the fire alarms in the surrounding buildings went off and people started pouring out onto the street.