Big China earthquake near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. I’ve been to the epicenter of Wenchuan a couple of times.
Initial reports 2 hours after the first quake do not report a disaster.
Quake was felt as far away as Bangkok, Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai. I was in Shanghai in a modern office tower on the 20th floor meeting with Fiat China. We didn’t feel a thing - after living in SF, Tokyo and Taiwan I do know what an earthquake feels like. However, the ancient office tower that my company is located in had some pretty good swaying for about 20 seconds. Same for the tower my company is located in Beijing.
Here’s in interesting part. at approximately 20 minutes after the quakes hit. A general evacuation order filtered through the system into the office tower that Fiat is located in and Fiat employees rushed everyone out of the building. It’s not a Fiat building, they just rent the 20th floor. So, I was pretty impressed that this got done some quickly and efficiently. Pretty sure there was a general evacuation order for all the office towers in China.
There are some “news” reports that a bigger quake will hit between 22:00-24:00 tonight. Color me skeptical.
Just about that time in Taipei I got that woozy feeling that could indicate a very minor earthquake, or could be a high blood pressure warning sign. About an hour later I read the news to find it wasn’t me, it was a massive earthquake in China. Yay me!
My girlfriend had to evacuate her office building today, everyone got sent home around 2PM. I think it was an exageration to do so; seems that everytime there´s an earthquake in a 2000 km radius she gets a day off… it´s not fair.
Of course my heart goes out to the victims of this quake, but so far it’s looking (and I feel bad about using this phrase when there are 900 people buried under rubble) not too terrible. I mean, 7.5 (and the Times is reporting 7.8) is a BIG quake. The 2005 quake in Pakistan was about the same size and 74,000 people were killed.
Sounds like there was minimal damage in Chengdu, thank goodness. That would have been really serious had it been closer. But still, sounds pretty ominous.
Ale, did you feel it? The BBC was reporting it was actually felt in Bangkok.
Epicenter is in Wenchuan, which is about 100 km away from Chengdu, a city of 11 million people. There are reports of a collapsed school and possibly another 700 students missing.
I spent a lot of time in the 1980’s in the area of the epicenter. It is really sparsely populated as this is Tibetan borderland. Towns of maybe a couple thousand people and villages of tens or hundreds only. There’s probably a lot more casualties but probably in the hundreds. So, it’s bad but could have been epic.
IIRC, the Tangshan earthquake near Beijing in 1976, had hundreds of thousands of casualties. An ex colleague had a scar from the earthquake on his face and one of his sisters died in that one.
Third hand reports that the office tower where my company is located in Chengdu had some cracks. Will learn more tomorrow.
Yeah, I read that and thought “oh, a college dormitory?” and was surprised to see it was little kids. Though equally sad either way.
My guess is the death toll will continue to rise. It may not be 74,000 as I write, but just wait… also, if history is any guide, the Chinese government will be reluctant to admit too much devastation if they are worried that it makes the country look bad somehow.
IIRC, there is a folkloric interpretation of earthquakes and sundry natural disasters as portending a Change in the Mandate of Heaven (i.e., dynastic legitimacy).
NPR’s “All Things Considered” crew is in China for some pre-Olympic coverage. They have several reporters posting on the events as they unfold: Link to Chengdu Diary
Not me, I work on a three storey office so I’m more likely to feel a truck passing by than an earthquake.
My girlfriend on the other hand works in a high floor on one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok and she can feel quakes from some frigging far away places; however this time she was at a factory when it hit so she didn´t feel it neither, but the building was evacuated to check for any possible damage.
The death toll seems to be climbing by the minute. I heard the reports that the quake was felt here in Bangkok. The wife and I were in a minivan in Chiang Mai province up North when it hit and did not feel a thing.
The Chinese government’s response seems to be pretty good so far. Compare that with those Burmese junta shlubs and that cyclone.
My company and the two large multinationals with factories in the Chengdu area did not have any casualties thankfully.
Mianyang, is a serious industrial city, and that’s where a lot of the casualties are located so far. It’s pretty obvious that the Tier 2 cities had a lot of buildings not up to code.
Troops just last night got to the epicenter. It’s a really rugged mountainous region suffering heavy rains. Landslides blocking roads are common in the best of times, so it’s got to be a nightmare now.
Initial Xinhua reports were claiming no significant damage.