Earthquake in China

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 at me: “then why are you doing talking to me? Get the hell out of the building”.

I went to the hallway to see a bunch of people, like me holding cellular phones, looking confused, not sure what to do, not sure what’s going on.  The swaying subsided and then restarted. I returned to my office only to realize that we were advised to evacuate the building.  We did.  Downstairs, a large crowd, all or most holding cellular phones, 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.

Reflecting on the moment, I keep remembering the bizarre conversation on the phone and what followed.  But most of all I remembered my Geology classes from college.  7.8 on the Richter scale is defined as almost total destruction depending on the distance from the epicenter.  The shallower the epicenter is, the more devastation it brings.  This one, according to the geologists, was the strongest earthquake in the region for over a generation.

The natural observation is of course: a lot more casualties are to be expected.  While I’m hoping that more casualties will not materialize, we’re waiting for more news.  Bad ones.