Sezhuan quake (as experienced in Xi'an)

Monday, ca. 2.30 pm, Pin and I were having an afternoon nap, after lunch. I was only dozing, when I noticed some movement in the bed. I thought Pin was having a dream and jerking in her sleep, but then I noticed the bed itself was shaking from side to side. I realised it was an earthquake, immediately woke Pin and (in a slight panic) told her we had to get out of the building quickly. I could feel the floor moving beneath my feet. It's not a comforting sensation when the ground beneath your feet is moving from side to side... We put on a minimum of clothes, grabbed phones and keys and went out. It all happened in a hurry. Pin wound up with her t-shirt on inside out and I was barefoot. I've experienced a couple of minor quakes in Australia, but nothing big enough to make pretty solid apartment blocks sway.

Xi'an is only 640 km from the epicenter of the quake. That's not far at all. It's the next big city in the vicinity of the epicenter after Chengdu, Sezhuan's capital. The governemnt has sent relief supplies from here. Communications and transport networks are interrupted in the affected area. It has been difficult to use the phones and internet, even here. Apparently it has been raining in the area, making roads already ruined by rockslides (rocks as big as cars blocking the way) even more inaccessible, so soldiers sent in to help have had to parachute into the effected area, even climb over mountains.

Other residents of our block were gathered outside. We went to a small park area, trying to get into a more open space, just in case things got worse and buildings were going tom topple. But nothing of the sort happened, at least not here in Xi'an (that I know of). We saw a 30 story crane at a nearby building site slowly swaying from side to side, probably 2 metres in either direction, but it didn't topple and came to a standstill after about 5 minutes. We went back inside after about 45 minutes. Later on we went out shopping, but most shops were closed, even, or especially big department stores.

Later we heard about the extent of the devastation. Apparently about 10,000 people have died. I wonder how they can tell so quickly. I guess it must be an estimate. It's a sobering thought to think that as we were jumping out of bed to get dressed, thousands of people in a nearby province were being buried beneath rubble. Pictures of landslides, mountain rubble, broken roads and injured people are coming through.

Tuesday update

Latest figures: more than 12,000 dead. Apparently there were two aftershocks around 4 am this morning. They were about half the strength of the original quake. We slept through them, but most of my students didn't. Somehow they had been forewarned by school authorities (??) and were up most of the night. when the quakes finally hit at 4 am, there was some panic. One student (not mine) jumped from the 1st floor. One of my own students didn't turn up at all - his family's village is not far from the epicentre and he hasn't heard any news... On my way to class I pass by a new freeway construction site. everything was still standing, but there were gaps of 20-30 cm between some of the co-joining slabs. It looked deserted. I guess the workers had been given the day off.

But all in all, you couldn't blame the government, neither main, nor provincial, for not doing everything necessary to help its people. despite anything you might hear about them, or the Chinese people for that matter, in a time of crisis, they rally together.