Almost two years have passed since I moved to Southern California, and on this 2nd Easter the earth shook, violently, beneath my feet!
It's Easter Sunday, after lunch today I went to my office at UCSD since I had some stuff to prepare for tomorrow. I was talking to my Mother when all of the sudden the walls, floor, lamps, shelves... everything around me was shaking! I immediately noticed it was a earthquake (perceptive, hum?). At first I found it funny. After all this was my first quake. But instead of calming down, the quake just got bigger and more intense; and now I was getting frightened; because, having no experience on quakes, I thought it would slow down as time went by. At that point I had to tell my Mother: "Mom... I need to hang up, the building is shaking", needless to say, she panicked :)
It must have last little less than one minute, and now that I look back, I admit that I've done pretty much everything I shouldn't! I was looking up watching the lamps shaking and the A/C pipes, waiting for them to fall on my lap. The alarm sounded on the building, and at that point I was running towards the emergency exit, when as sudden as it appear the quake just... disappeared! By the way, my office is on the 5th floor. As I was reaching for the stairs, I run into a friend. He was at another room in that same floor. He was beneath a table throughout the quake... smart attitude, I thought. I guess it's experience!
After all this commotion we were slowly walking down the stairs, and laughing about how scared we got. The adrenaline was still flowing through our veins.
Any event, all is well when it ends well! And yet (another) lesson learnt: do not underestimate the power of mother nature!
PS- we had several aftershocks throughout the day, but none of them even resembled the big quake.
One day, I decided to take my camera and capture a couple of small video clips during a practice run. The resulting footage lacks quality, but gives an idea of my neighborhood. Hope you enjoy it!
It's Easter Sunday, after lunch today I went to my office at UCSD since I had some stuff to prepare for tomorrow. I was talking to my Mother when all of the sudden the walls, floor, lamps, shelves... everything around me was shaking! I immediately noticed it was a earthquake (perceptive, hum?). At first I found it funny. After all this was my first quake. But instead of calming down, the quake just got bigger and more intense; and now I was getting frightened; because, having no experience on quakes, I thought it would slow down as time went by. At that point I had to tell my Mother: "Mom... I need to hang up, the building is shaking", needless to say, she panicked :)
