Earthquake in China

Brian has experienced his first earthquake today in China and he is happy to say he is ok, but was a very scary experience. He is in Suzhou this week on his normal visit to the Teradyne office and suppliers out there.

He called me as they were emergency evacuating the building, he was in the stairwell filled with people. He was clearly worried and scared but was trying to stay calm. He said "There is an earthquake right now, we are evacuating." He explained that he was in a conference room and suddenly felt the room moving and swaying. He said that the stairwell was even worse swaying and moving as they were trying to get down the NUMEROUS floors to GET OUT of the building. Very scary!!! He said he felt the quake for almost 6 minutes as they were navigating the numerous stairs all crammed in together. They found an empty field not too far from the building and waited for an hour to get news of what to do. The field was filled with tons of people from other nearby buildings and no one really knew what to do.

I turned on CNN when he first called and there was nothing on about the earthquake and then suddenly there was breaking news. I was able to fill Brian in on the location of the epicenter and the fact that it was 7.8! We hung up and I waited to hear back.

Later he called back and said that they waited about 2 hours and then decided to quickly go back in the building collect their items and then everyone was sent home until further notice. The aftershocks were starting and they were pretty strong at 5.5. They are not sure that their building is safe to return to, as it seemed that they felt it more than some of the neighboring buildings. Maybe a poorer quality building?? They will have to get someone to evaluate the building to make sure it is structurally sound.

So Brian is now safe and sound in his hotel, but he was very nervous about any more possible after shocks. He will most likely be working out of the hotel until he leaves on Friday.

Please keep all those families and people in China in your thoughts...this was a big one.