Earhquake part 2

The earthquake hit in the afternoon, but everything seemed quite normal soon after. Where I live, I only saw one slightly damaged building, but quite a lot of buildings have suffered cracks. It was quickly found out that it was 7.8, and that a lot of China had felt it. Initially people said no-one died, then later a number of 7000 was heard. Just now - 7am on the next day - I heard the number was 40,000.

My tutor is a Masters student, and living in the dormitory, he wasn't sure whether they would be allowed back in, so we went back to where I live. It was all pretty normal, until when we were going back home, I bump into a Spanish guy I know, who was planning on sleeping outside. As it turns out, the park was full of people prepared for a night's sleep. Seeing all that, I thought I'd better stay out as well.

It wasn't quite Woodstock, but it was an interesting atmosphere, about 25 Europeans and all the locals hanging out in the park at night. Because it wasn't too serious where I was, no-one was particularly freaked out. Still, it was only until after I heard the government announced at 12am that there would be no more aftershocks that I went back home. Besides, my building looks reasonably well-built.

4.30am, an aftershock woke me up. It's really a disturbing feeling. It seemed pretty clear that nothing was going to collapse, it was quite a small shake, but staying inside didn't sit comfortably, and seeing lots of people leaving the surrounding buildings, I went back to the park. But after about an hour, everyone was cold and bored so returned home. Now it's 7.50am on the second day, no appetite and I see on the news that it's a big one.

It's been an uneasy few hours. Coupled with the typhoon in Myanmar-Burma, the bad winter in China, and the very strange weather recently here, and the highly-visible, absolute destruction development is having on the environment, it adds to the unease.