At 7:58 am on Wednesday morning, a greater-than-7.0 earthquake hit Taiwan. At 8:02 the first message came through my LINE account (instant-messaging app used in Taiwan) to a group of Fulbrighters: “Hi guys! Just checking in…earthquake just happened. Everyone ok?” In the hour or two afterward, dozens of messages. People checking in, sending photos of shattered glass in their apartments, letting others know they are all right. It was apparently the most serious earthquake in Taiwan since 1999, i.e. 25 years ago. Concerned friends back in the States reached out to make sure Sonja and I were okay.
Sonja and I are okay. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the flood of messages from our friends and colleagues in Taiwan, we wouldn’t have found out about the earthquake until it made international news hours later. You see, we were in Japan this week for Sonja’s spring break from school. Fulbright allows grantees to spend up a few days away from Taiwan during their grant period, so I decided to take advantage of Sonja’s break and do something together that we would likely not have the chance to do again.
It’s a strange, disjointed feeling, missing an earthquake in a place you think of, even temporarily, as your home base. I felt disconnected and a bit guilty not being there and sharing that experience with our friends. I think Sonja was curious about what it felt like to be in a bona fide earthquake. In Taipei it sounds like most of our friends had a shocking but not too damaging experience. There was strong shaking everywhere, things falling off shelves, but buildings holding steady for the most part. In Hualien, on the east coast near the epicenter, things were more serious. My colleagues there sent horrifying photos of buildings disintegrating and leaning precariously; one friend had to make his way through chaotic post-quake streets to retrieve his children from school. Transportation was cut off in many places.
Others in Japan were experiencing the same sense of disjointed shock and guilt as we were. We were standing in front of the ticket machines in an Osaka subway station right after we heard the news from our friends, and a trio of Chinese-speaking tourists was there too, one on the phone with someone in Taiwan. He was relaying the news to his companions, and they were listening wide eyed to the descriptions: “I’ve never felt one that strong!”
So for better reflections on the earthquake from someone who was there, and who also experienced Taiwan’s last big earthquake in 1999, I refer you to the delightful blog that my colleague Albert Wu and his wife Michelle Kuo maintain, A Broad and Ample Road. There, Albert offers some striking photos and links along with his own observations and memories.
Hi Hilary, I was just about to send you an email asking about whether the earthquake affected you and then I thought about checking out your blogpost. I found it! Hope you are ok. From the posts here, it seems that you are having a great cultural experience! Still have to read all of them!!! Feeling being exploited of my time at DU.