Journal #6

The Earthquake in My Country

In 1999, there was a devastating earthquake in Taiwan, the day was September 21. I was a student in college. While the earthquake happened, the time was 1:47 am, I was sleeping in dormitory. I woke up immediately when I felt that. Then the alarm bell was ringing. I felt everything was shaking. Suddenly, the bookcase where on the corner was falling down. My roommates and I were so scared that we ran out of the room. On the corridor, I saw everyone was running. However, the earthquake was so strong that we had to walk along the walls. Then we ran out of dormitory. We found an open space and stayed there. At the same time, the earthquake was still working.

We had a conversation about the earthquake. I said, “I have not seen a grisly earthquake in my life.” One of my roommate said, “Me, either. I think it must be a high magnitude earthquake.” Another roommate said, “Magnitude six or seven, probably.” Later, the police of school came to us and said, “Everyone fine? Just stay here, do not go anywhere. We will come back soon. Take care.” I saw the trees were shaking and the windows of building were crumbling. Even though everything came apart, there had good news. Our buildings were pretty strong. No one fell down. Only some buildings had few fractures. The earthquake was still working.

Thirty minutes left, I tried to call home; however, my cell phone and pay phone both did not work because the electric power system was broken. Although I worried about my family, I could not go anywhere at that time. We stayed there until 8:00 am. The main earthquake was stopped but there still had a few happened lightly. We sat on the ground and ate some bread that the police gave us. The tap water system also broken so we just had bottle waters.

Until noon, the earthquake almost finished. The president of school made a decision that everyone went home and stayed with family. So he asked the city government to help us. On the way, I saw many buildings toppled down. Freeways and bridges were broken. Fires and accidents happened everywhere. I remembered there were many tall buildings in the city but at that time, just ruins. The prospects looked like the end of the world. When I arrived home, everyone was fine. I was so happy and give them a hug.

Soon many countries and the International Red Cross helped us whatever we are not the member of the United Nations or we do not have diplomatic relations with these countries. After earthquake, the government did an investigation of the calamity. Thousands of people died and wounded. Finally, we spent several months rebuild our country and home. Until now, I believe that perhaps you can imagine the view I saw. In your mind, my story may is similar to the movies but it truly happened in my country.