Another New Experience

We experienced another first today while living in China. I was on the 28th floor of our office building in the Central Business District in Beijing in the middle of a 2:30 pm meeting with a work colleague. I thought I was fainting and my colleague was looking at me strangely confirming that something was wrong with me. My only thought was not to pass out or vomit. Then I noticed the lights and the window shades were swaying. I then realized that our whole building was moving back and forth.

My first thought was that nearby construction had caused this or faulty construction of the building was going to result in a catastrophe. We all exited the building through the stairwell. I left me coat, mobile phone, and blackberry and exited quickly. The building was still moving while getting to about the 25th floor. Everyone was very orderly exiting in the stairwells.

We all gathered on the side walk across the street, then decided to move further away from the building. After some discussion and consultation with the blackberry we realized we had just experienced an earthquake. One earthquake was 7.8 and centered in Sichuan Province where the Three Gorges Dam is located on the Yangtze (950 miles from Beijing). Another one was a 3.9 which was centered in Tongzhou District in east Beijing at roughly the same time.

After 10 or 15 minutes on the side walk, a fight broke out and was coming our way. We noticed that 6 or 7 men were chasing another man. They knocked him to the ground and then began stomping him. The attackers ran off and the man got up and began calling on his mobile phone and was looking for his attackers who scattered. It was very difficult to tell what was going on and why the man was attacked.

We returned to the building after about an hour with no aftershocks felt. Another life experience in China............