My Earthquake Experience

The terrible earthquake happened in the afternoon on May 12, 2008 when I was about to library. Suddenly I felt the floor shaking. At the beginning I didn’t think it an earthquake because I had never experience earthquake before. I just thought it must be something wrong with our dormitory. I knew I was wrong when my roommate shout “Earthquake!” Then all of us hid under the desk waiting for the shaking to stop. During that time I was totally blank and murmuring to pray for the stop of the shaking. Fortunately, the shaking stopped after about 3 minutes and all of us safely went out of the dormitory. When I received my brother's SMS which said at 2:28 a huge earthquake happened in Sichuan, I still found it hard to believe that an earthquake would hit Sichuan. Because according to my geographic knowledge, Sichuan was seldom stricken by such disaster. However, the earthquake was a truth and I felt it so strongly. I felt so lucky for my safety in such a devastating earthquake.

But many people in Wenchuan, the epicenter, were not as lucky as us. The earthquake happened while many children were in class and they had no time to escape before the teaching buildings tore down, so many of them were buried in the ruins. Not only children but also many adults died right away when the earthquake destroyed their buildings and more people were injured and failed to contact their families, relatives and friends. Besides, many more people had to leave their homes because the earthquake knocked their homes down. At the ruin of a primary school in Du Jiangyan, hundreds of books and schoolbags brought tears to thousands of Chinese even foreigners. However, there was something we should be glad of. For examples, emergency workers and rescue teams gave first aid to search for survivors and Premier Wen Jiabao came to visit the devastated areas and comforted the people at the first time.

However, don’t think it safe after the earthquake. One scary thing was the aftershocks which is smaller earthquakes after a big one and acts as a reminder of the fear from the big one. Many people still chose to sleep in the open air although the government had advised the residents to go back homes again and again. On that night, I didn’t dare to sleep though I went back to my dormitory.

Today, the fears of earthquake seem to decrease with time elapsed. I really hope everything can be normal