The world is shaking

It was about 2.30pm, I had gone home from my classes early due to a really bad stomach ache that nearly prevented me to stand up in class, in later reflection I think it might have been a warning sign for what was to happen later but I rather think it's just because of my recent travels to different food cultural places. So I was lying in my bed when suddenly I heard squeaking machinery and suddenly my room started shaking in an uncomfortable wobbling way. I was wondering to myself what the hell was going on with the subway construction or whatever and rose out of bed to check what was going on; the crane outside was swinging back and forth and that looked pretty scary, I saw people running around down on the streets and I started hearing the voices of my neighbours as they where gathering up and running out.

I did actually bother to go outside my door too but didn't bother to go any further, I was tired and from what I had seen on the street I figured that it would just be safer to stay, so I went back to bed and started to try and contact people, which didn't work out too well. Staying in bed worked perfectly fine actually, but contacting people was harder, the only one I managed to get a reply from was Joyce, and she couldn't find anything to tell me.

The main shake was actually pretty big, they say it was 7.8 in the epicenter and around 5 here in Chengdu, and on the 20Th floors I could feel it quite heavily, the only lasting effect I saw in my apartment though was my cutting board that fell over from it's standing leaning position over the sink and into the sink instead, that took about 2 seconds to correct, so basically no, I didn't feel scared: if my shelves with classes could hold up I figure the concrete building must manage as well.

I have no prior experience with earthquakes so I have nothing at all to compare to, the time it lasted seemed pretty long, like a few minuets, but the power of it didn't feel so bad to me, compared to what I've seen in movies and stuff at least, haha. I stayed in my apartment for a few hours after the main shock and there was an almost constant vibration in the building, I though it was just the building keeping shaking out of pure resonance or something but it turns out there have been as many as 44 or even more small aftershocks.

At about 5.30pm a friend messaged me and told me there would be another big shock at 7pm so I figured it would actually be safer to leave before the chaos started again, I got a pretty good view of the traffic chaos from my window, so I gathered up some stuff, like my passport and laptop and other important things, and headed down the 21 stairs (since the main entrance was blocked for some reason and I had to go down to the parking spaces under the building to get out) and went out for lunch. I had still not found anyone who could speak English so I had my hopes on a Taiwanese guy that has a small restaurant near my place, but of course he was closed so I went to the next door restaurant instead.

Then I went out to where I am right now, outside a closed Starbucks where I have both power and a wireless connection to play with (the biggest reason I went out at all was actually that my Internet at home was disconnected when I got back from Shanghai, probably because I haven't paid for it in a few months). Here I finally met some people speaking English and I managed to get my Internet running and got the information I felt I needed, so right now I'm pretty satisfied.

The quake itself had it's center around 90km northwest of Chengdu and about 10km underground, it reached a maximum of 7.8 and about 5 here in Chengdu at 2.28pm local time. The official death toll right now is 107 people and more than 37 more are injured, the first numbers we saw was 4 and 5 dead students (I think primary school or middle school students) somewhere, there are also new about some 900 students are buried under their school buildings but it doesn't say much more. From BBCnews.com

I did not experience any problem with power and water, out of the ordinary that is, my building loses power once in a while and when it did today it was nothing that couldn't happen any day, except perhaps that the whole building was out of power and not just my apartment, which is partly why I decided to stay in my room since I actually get light from the windows there. It might be that I actually live in a pretty good building, considering I had power all throughout the quake and when I lost it I actually got it back in about an hour or two.

I have actually been a lot more afraid than this, and probably with good cause, just experiencing the normal every day traffic here, I've had more than a few near death experiences so far. Saying this probably doesn't sooth the mind of a scared mother but what I'm trying to say that this is not really anything to worry about.