lotus land letters

Zhonghuamen, Chinese Cultural Centre, Chinatown

I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet

10:54am, Wednesday, February 28, 2001 - I was at home reading the newspaper. I had no morning classes, so I was catching up on the world around me. I was feeling a little dizzy because of a headache from last night. Otherwise, everything was okay."

Then it started with a rumble. That wasn't out of the ordinary since large trucks are always passing by my home. So I thought it was one of those. But the rumbling didn't stop. What in the world would shake the house for more than a second? The answer came to me.
I jumped out of my chair and stood in the doorway of my room. From the hallway, I could see the water in the aquarium was swishing back and forth. I looked back into my room. Anything that was hanging was swaying back and forth. I looked at my watch and guessed that 10 seconds had passed since the shaking started. Then the rumbling was gone.

I knew for sure that must have been an earthquake. Not a very strong earthquake, but definitely the strongest quake I have ever felt. It was scary and exciting at the same time. I wondered if I should call my parents to check on them, but then I knew that all the telephone lines would be very busy at a time like this.

Like everyone else in the Pacific Northwest (the area of North America that includes the US states of Washington and Oregon as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia), I had a story about when the earthquake struck. The earthquake was centered near Olympia, the capital of Washington. That's about 250 km southwest of Vancouver. Plus, it was about 60 km underground. The quake was 6.8 on the Richter scale. That means it is a strong quake capable of causing damage. In Vancouver, I only felt the quake for about 10 seconds or so. In Seattle, the ground shook for close to a minute.

Pictures of Seattle flooded the news all day. Almost all the buildings were still standing. Some of the older buildings suffered the most damage. Old brick buildings in the heritage area of Seattle, Pioneer Square, lost most of their bricks. A shower of bricks must have come down on parked cars in front of those buildings. Some roads were cracked, bridges missing parts, and damaged cars still being driven around. Even Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, was about to give a speech in a Seattle hotel when parts of the ceiling started dropping on his audience.

Damage in Washington State is expected to be US$1 Billion. The governor declared a state of emergency in Western Washington. Luckily, only 1 person died in this earthquake. From what I heard, the cause of his death was actually a heart attack. So Seattle and the rest of Washington are picking up the pieces of the aftermath.

In Vancouver, it was just something to talk about. I got on the bus to go to school afterwards and a group of bus drivers had gotten together on my bus and were talking about where they were when the earthquake hit. When I got to school, all my classmates were talking about it.

Vancouver was spared this time, but an even larger earthquake is expected to hit this region. An earthquake like the recent one happens about every 40-50 years. An earthquake of 9.0 on the Richter scale strikes this region every 500 years. The last time that happened is estimated to be 1700, but it could come at any time.

So, is Vancouver ready for "the big one", the 9.0 earthquake? Seattle did amazingly well in such a strong earthquake. The city had been spending lots of money to make buildings stronger for earthquakes and educating the public about what to do during an earthquake. I think Seattle's efforts have paid off. No major buildings came tumbling down and the death toll was extremely small. Vancouver has similar efforts to make buildings better during earthquakes, but I don't know how good those efforts are. Let's hope they're really good.

So don't worry about me. I'm shaken, but not stirred.