The Downunder Ladies Do the Sichuan Earthquake!

KIWI HEATHER AND CHRISTINE-FROM-OZ'S SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCE

As promised, here's a brief account of Heather and Christine's S.E.E.:

First off, both are devastated by the death and destruction and feel totally blessed that they got out unharmed. Doubly blessed, in fact, because they were in Chong Pi, the epicentre of the quake, exactly 24 hours before it happened and are so thankful they'd moved on and were 300 km away in Chongqing city when it hit.

By the way, here's something they told me I find really interesting: exactly 24 hours before the quake, as they were parking their car in Chongqing, a billboard attached high up on a building suddenly collapsed and smashed down onto the car behind them.

Hearing this, I'm immediately going "Aahh!! P-waves!!!" but they say no; just shoddy workmanship. They could be right, however I'm more inclined to think "Mmmmm! I wonder if the Japanese would be interested in this?"

Have you heard about p-waves? Probably not, since Japanese scientists have only just discovered them.

OK, here's what they're about: Seems that, according to findings in Japan last week, just before an earthquake, the ground at the epicentre suddenly compacts, contracts and pushes upwards. They are currently looking for more data because they think "p-waves" are the answer to finally developing an early-warning system and are just now trying to discover how long before an earthquake strikes that p-waves start happening.

From my reading of the billboard collapse, it's 24 hours, but both ladies say "No, definitely not!" because it didn't seem to them like the ground suddenly moved around and thus shook off the offending object.

However ... maybe a detailed description to the appropriate Japanese scientists is in order. Let them make up their own minds. How about it, ladies? And what a buzz it would be to perhaps be part of a new and exciting discovery that goes on to save zillions of lives!

But what actually happened to them? Well, they weren't together when it struck. Heather was at the airport, already in the restricted zone, waiting to catch a flight back to HK, and Christine was out and about in one of the suburban areas of Chongqing city.

Christine says she's been in earthquakes several times before but this one felt completely different; much bigger, sure, but in her previous earthquakes the ground kinda "lolloped", like it was moving in undulating waves of up-and-down, while in this one the ground stayed flat and moved from side-to-side and felt exactly like being on one of those fairground attractions where you have to walk on those moving plates and it's virtually impossible even to stay upright.

Here's what she says: The first thing we noticed was a loud "thumping" sound coming from the front of the building we were entering, then realised it was the plate glass windows sounding like they were being jackhammered. At that point we decided to "get the hell outta there!" and raced into the street. Moments later the shaking began and people started running screaming from all the buildings around us into the road and congregated there with such loud shouting, screaming and crying going on. We could see the high-rise apartment blocks visibly moving around, so I suggested to my friend that we move away from the centre of the road as I didn't want us hit by any falling glass if the windows gave way.

So we moved to a (relatively) safer area across the street in a park with large trees to stand under. It was a case of... what's the greater chance? Crashing glass or limbs falling off trees? From what we could see, the buildings were moving more than the trees, so we elected to stand under the trees! It was such a strange sensation to have the earth moving sideways under our feet. A bit like being on a boat on the water - and in fact, many people said later that they first knew something was wrong because they started feeling "woozy" and thought there was something wrong with their stomach!"

Meanwhile Kiwi-Heather went through a much more bizarre and "lessons must be learned here" experience inside the restricted area of the airport building, because when it struck Chinese Authority - with its god-awful strange bullying mentality - got involved.

So, what happened?

Heather's a Kiwi, right? Growing up on the very edge of The Pacific's Ring of Fire, she's known earthquakes up-the-whazoo, and thinks this one was decidedly different. When it first struck, for a few seconds, she didn't even realise it was an earthquake, instead wondering if there was some area below the ground where someone was fooling around with heavy machinery? But then she looked around and noticed doorways moving and then saw that, on the runway, vehicles were jumping about. That's when she recognised what it was and acted, walking quickly for the exit ...

... and noticing that Chinese folk continued to sit there until an employee ran in shouting in Chiongqingese. That's when they reacted and there was a mad panicked race out through security. Heather, as much worried about the stampede as the earthquake, moved off to the side.

Well, the earth continued to shake until she was through security, more than a minute by this time, and then, just around a corner from security she walks straight into ...

... a entire crowd pressed up against The Immigration Desks. Not kidding! The immigration officers are standing there holding back the crowd ensuring no-one can go anywhere. Passports have been stamped after all!!

Luckily, it was right at that moment that the shaking stopped and everyone calmed down ... but isn't that such a strange thing to happen? I can relate because Keith and I TWICE have literally been within seconds of being crushed to death - once during a democracy rally and once during the WTO riots - and both times the situation was caused by police; two lots of different sets of police directing people in a bullying, hectoring fashion and not communicating with each other.

And on both occasions our lives were saved by individuals with no authority whatsoever realising what was happening and defying police bigtime by kicking over or removing the barricades and giving We-the-Trapped space to move into; and both times this heroic individual was an overseas-educated Chinese; actually, both times it was a Canadian-educated Chinese, so Kudos to the Canadian Education System for whatever it's doing that lets individuals think for themselves and know how to immediately act on it.

Guess Chongqing Airport Restricted Zone doesn't have a lot of Canadian-educated Chinese among its staff!

So there you go. The Downunder Ladies Do the Sichuan Earthquake!