[Slightly sarcastic aside: The CNN article I linked to below is notable for being one of the few CNN articles about Taiwan that does not contain the line, "China considers Taiwan a renegade province." Where were their copy editors?]
[12/27/06 update] The BBC News' website notes that communications have been affected by last night's quake:
Taiwan's largest telephone company, Chunghwa Telecom Co, said damage to an undersea cable had disrupted 98% of Taiwan's communications with Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.And Mabel Liao writes in the comments (below) from "the center of the earthquake" in Hengchun, where she teaches. She says her school was closed today because of rockslides.
9 comments:
Jon,
glad to hear your feet are still on the ground. Thought of you and Linda when I heard the news. Keep us posted.
Hope all is going well. Will drop you an email with the latest updates.
bender
pebender@hotmail.com
if you posted this at 8:29 . . . you got your post in before the second one.
and . . . sitting down here in KH county--I wouldn't exactly call them "little."
My neighbors were quite freaked out--expecially with the second one.
that should be eSpecially not eXpecially . . . i need to go to bed now. . . .
Good to hear from you, Paul! Thanks for the comments, both of you--actually, I started the post at 8:29, but didn't finish until about 8:40.
I heard on the news that there was a fire and some buildings that fell in Pingtung. And a 3-foot high tsunami headed toward the Philippines! Not little at all...
Well, according to CNN's article, the tsunami danger has passed. It does mention, however, that there was at least one death in Pingtung. I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm in the center of the earthquake, Hengchun, Pingtung county. Last night when I was in the dormitory of the school, I rushed out of the room because of the huge tremor. It lasted for a few minutes, and then about ten minutes later, there was a even more larger quake coming.
It was a historical catastrophe here in the town, and another school which is a part of ours was seriously damaged. The rock keeps falling from the mountain into the school, so the school was forced to close today.
Wow--it must be quite a fright for people closer to the quake. I see on the Central Weather Bureau's website that there have been about seven quakes in the area since last night's 20:40 tremor. Did you feel them all?
Not only did I feel them all (including the slightest one), but I still feel scared when I perceived the minor quake at once. Whenever we feel something moving, we are ready to rush out for safety. My students had a terrible night and some of them stayed in the car for the night. As for me, I didn’t sleep at all, and jumped quickly from the bed when the quake came again in 1:30 am.
They said they have never suffered such a terrible quake in their life, and the TV reports show that the earthquake was the most devastating one in Hengchun for the century.
Last night our principal and some of our students appeared in the TV news describing their feelings, and that's why it was such a haunting experience for me and this community.
The recovery for this area will last for a long time, and I hope another quake won't come too fast! (The forecast said that there’s going to be another one in the southern Taiwan.)
My wife saw the news about your school on Wednesday.
I hope your students are able to recover from the emotional impact of the quake. My wife and I have seen some kids who were greatly affected emotionally (and cognitively) by 921, even though some of them were only a couple of years old when it happened.
Take care!
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