The first time I ever felt an earthquake I was in a little village in New Zealand. I was pretty sure that I’d heard somewhere that, during an earthquake, you should get outdoors or at the very least find a doorway to stand in. I decided that it was too cold so snuggled up under my duvet instead with the assumption that the building was too small to crush me to death. It stopped a few seconds later and in the morning I had to verify that it wasn’t just a dream.I felt my second earthquake this afternoon here in Beijing and my reaction was similarly relaxed (irresponsible?) but not on purpose. I was sitting at my desk in my room doing some work and sort of felt like I was swaying from side to side. I had gone out the previous night and chalked it up to a hangover and instead of rushing into the streets with the rest of Beijing’s Central Business District where I live, I decided I needed a nap. I only found out a few hours later than it had been an earthquake. Oops.
It looks like this earthquake in Sichuan has been a major event with five deaths becoming 5,000 potentially. In Myanmar it’s looking like things are spiraling way out of control and will only get worse as the government keeps denying access to relief workers and supplies. Having had the opportunity to put faces, names and stories to the disaster in Bangladesh has made me take these recent events a little more personally than I might have before.
So I’m holding off on the Chinese lessons and waiting to see what happens in Myanmar and with this earthquake in China because there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than relief work with HODR. Does that make me a disaster chaser? Creepy.
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