Today, you'll see on Good Morning America, CNN, or some other news outlet: "Earthquake Hits China, Registers a 7.5..." The quake occurred in the southwest province of Sichuan and we felt the tremor here in our office in Shanghai...hundreds of miles away. I had just stood up from my office chair and had walked over to the photo copier when I heard this tapping noise. I asked what that noise was and Jason, my co-worker, said he felt a little dizzy and said the chains for the window dressings were swaying back and forth and tapping against the window frames. There are about 12 windows in our office and all the chains were swinging in perfect unison. I said I didn't really feel anything but it must have been an earthquake. Sure enough, the reason he felt dizzy & the chains were swinging was because the building was moving ever so slightly from a tremor. We are on the 7th floor of a 25 story building. So we walked down to the main lobby in our office building and all of the larger hanging lights were also swaying back and forth as if someone had just "tapped" them. The lady at the front desk confirmed that there had been a tremor from an earthquake somewhere in China. The building started to clear as workers left their offices for the sanctity of the open sidewalk. We spoke with people in the upper floors and they said that the building was swaying so much that it was very noticeable and it lasted for about 3 or 4 minutes.
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I wrote the above portion about a 1/2 hour after we felt the tremors. This I am updating at 11:13 PM my time. Much more is known now and this is turning out to be the worst earthquake in China in 30 years. Apparently there are more than 7500 people suspected dead...many of them are children as a number of schools have collapsed. 2 chemical plants have also collasped.
