I’ve experienced several earthquakes, mainly in Japan but also in Germany and China. In Germany we rarely have earthquakes, so when there is one, people panic even though the earthquakes are very light. I was in Shanghai when the 2008 Sichuan earthquake happened. Shanghai was very far away from the epicentre but the skyscrapers still swayed. In Japan I experienced several ones. I remember that often we would sit in my grandparents home, suddenly the room would shake and a second later, news about the earthquake would pop up on the TV. Some earthquakes I remember individually were: I was sitting in a cinema, suddenly it was shaking, nobody bat an eye or left the cinema; once I was on the phone with a friend when suddenly an earthquake happened and I exclaimed “it’s an accident!” I mixed up the Japanese words for earthquake and accident...; once my mom called me in the middle of the night to ask me if I was ok. I was like “why?” and that’s how I learnt that I had slept through the earthquake that was big enough that they brought it in the news in Germany. Another exchange student in my floor was shocked though. She was wakened by the earthquake and it was a first for her. I can’t really say how many earthquakes I encountered but as I know them since early childhood and was never hurt, I normally don’t get scared when it happens. My mom visited my grandparents when the 2011 earthquake and tsunami happened which led to the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. She was luckily far away but thought at first that she was dizzy. Later she learnt that it had been the earthquake.

Yea, I have such an experience!

Terrible and somehow funny!

I was in class in the 4th floor as a teacher and writing on the board for students, and suddenly I felt that the ground under my feet was shaking! I didnt guess for the first time thats an earthquake! But when I understoood the class was empty and Im thr only person in the class, I got that it was an earthquake! So, in that moment I just escape from the scence!

I think the bad thing is after earthquake as you feel that it might happen again in that day or week or even month!

You should come to Japan, if you want to know more about earthquakes.

@Cilla

This thread is a good opportunity for everyone to know there are lots of victims of earthquakes and the natural disasters always occur unexpectedly. Good discussion!

I've experienced the shaking of globe many times and the unforgettable one is the small earthquake when I was in the bathtub. Yes, I was naked! I saw the waves trembling in the bathtub. Surely, you can't choose the time or place.

I was in Xi'an during the Sichuan earthquake that killed almost 90,000 people. Xi'an was quite far from the epicenter, but even there it was strong enough to kill 8 people. I was sitting at a table, watching youtube videos (using an illegal VPN), when I saw my water bottle levitate up from the table and SLAM into the door on the opposite side of the room. The whole room swayed, and about 15 seconds later it swayed again in a different direction. I thought "Oh wow, that must have been an earthquake," and went back to watching youtube. Ive always had stupidly slow reactions. Then, I heard my neighbors running down the staircase and realized that yeah, it was probably a bad idea to stay sitting in a poorly-built tall building.