Earthquake in Taiwan: Kaohsiung County 4th March, 2010
I woke up this morning to the strange sensation of my bed rocking.
“Wow, that’s some hangover. What on earth did I do last night?”
“…”
“…hang on last night was Wednesday night… and… I didn’t go out. Wait what the hell just happened?!”
At that point I realised I’d just experienced my second major earthquake in Taiwan. The first hit Taichung in late December and was strong enough to wake me from my pre-Saturday night out nap.
I was already awake when this earthquake struck but hadn’t quite got out of bed. Coming from Australia, earthquakes are still new to me so I haven’t developed the ‘OMG RUN!’ sense just quite yet.
Instead I just kind of lay there feeling my bed move and thinking to myself “hey this is kinda cool!”
The earthquake hit in the Kaohsiung County mountains and came in at 6.4 on the Richter scale. Apparently there was a whole bunch of aftershocks but after the initial quake I didn’t really feel anything.
I went out cycling shortly after the quake hit (only reason I was up so early), so maybe that’s why.
Over in Kaosiung (southern Taiwan) however they bore the full brunt of the quake. Train lines were closed and one High Speed Rail train actually came off it’s tracks with passengers on board!
Estimates put the injured at about 60 and luckily nobody was killed.
It seems if I want to live in Taiwan I’m going to have to get used to the earth shaking at least once a month or so.
To be honest I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that yet…
I recorded a video and sent it to them, here’s the clip!
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