Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

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http://blogs.sun.com/ChinaExperience/date/20080512 Monday May 12, 2008

Earthqauake in Beijing

I have experienced earthquakes before.  Living in California for a while, and even once in Tel Aviv, I remember clearly - it was not a pleasant experience.  But today was a completely different experience.  I was sitting in my office on the tenth floor of the Chuangxin (Innovation) Plaza at the Tsinghua Science Park in Beijing, China.  I was on the phone, and I found my self saying: "excuse me, but my building is moving, I think we're experiencing an earthquake".  The person on the other line yelled: "then what are you doing talking to me?  Get the hell out of there".

I went to the hallway to see a bunch of people, like me holding cellular phones, looking confused, not sure what to do.  The swaying subsided.  I returned to the office only to realize that we were advised to leave the building.  We did.  Downstairs, a large crowd, all or most holding cellular phones, was waiting for further instructions.

The All Clear came relatively quickly.

Turned out to have been a powerful earthquake, between 7.5-7.8 on the Richter scale.  That's no laughing matter.  Anyway, all is well.  It was a scare.

Comments:

wow. glad you are ok!

Posted by Jim Grisanzio on May 12, 2008 at 05:04 PM CST #

I was giving a presentation to a customer in North Beijing at the time. Maybe I was too focused on what I was doing, but I didn't notice it!

After I finished someone pointed out that we had had one and that the window had shaken.

I am amazed at the figure of 75.-7.8. I was in the Newcastle 'quake of '89. It was only 6.5, but my god I noticed that.

Alan.

Posted by Alan Hargreaves on May 12, 2008 at 07:05 PM CST #

Rule #1 in an earthquake. If things are falling from the ceiling get into a doorway and brace yourself. It is one of the stronger parts of a room and the roof won't hit you if it falls.

Mind you on the 10th floor if the roof falls you are in a world of trouble. The above advice is for a normal house.

Glad to hear you are okay. Never been through one myself (knock wood) and hopefully you have filled your lifetime quota :)

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