Earthquakes were one of the last things on my mind as I was making supper last night. But shortly after 6:00pm, we got a rude awakening! Yep, we definitely felt the earthquake here in Chiangmai last evening. The tremors reached us about 6:10pm. Nancy had no sooner said,” Did you feel that?”, when I realized that the whole building was shaking. It was strong enough that the pictures on the wall were moving and the building was obviously swaying a bit. By the time we decided to do something, it was over. The shaking lasted about 20 seconds. The most recent data puts the quake at a magnitude of 6.3 at the epicenter, located near Chiang Rai, about 180km north of here. There were aftershocks all evening that culminated with a series of short but strong ones around 8:00 am today. We haven’t felt anything since, although we were warned they could continue for another 6-12 hours. Apparently, major earthquakes are quite rare in Thailand but tremors are often felt in the northern part of the country.
“This is the most powerful earthquake to strike the country in recent times,” Burin Wechbunthung, a seismologist at the Meteorological Department, told Agence-France Presse. ”There have been five aftershocks so far and people within a 150-kilometre radius of the epicentre in Phan district should be warned,” he added.
It is a little disconcerting living on the 9th floor! Not really able to run out of the building if it happens again. Of course, we thought of all the cliché things to do…stand under a doorframe, crawl under something, walk down the staircase to get outside…all of which are activities you should not do as I found out today when doing a little research (see the video at the end of this posting).
Anyway, it made for an exciting evening! Hopefully, that’s all the shaking for awhile, at least because of earthquakes!
You can find pictures, videos and lots of detailed info on the recent quake here.
Check out the video below to get some tips on how to survive a large earthquake. A lot of misinformation is put to rest!
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That would be a tad disconcerting!!!!
I NEED GLASSES! I read, “…magnitude of 6.4 at the Sphincter! !” , not e
as you wrote, “epicenter”.
I’ve experienced 6.4 at the sphincter in Asia, indeed disconcerting also;)))
lol I’m sure many have experienced more than 6.4 throughout Asia!