Have you ever been in a earthquake?

[KellysEye]

Our first was when we were in rented accomadation, in Chaguaramas Trinidad, as our boat was having it's teak decks removed and and repainted. The building shook and we went into the loo on the basis it had the smallest ceiling. Our second was in, Rodney Bay Marina St Lucia, again everthing shook and the mooring post in front of the pontoon was moving side to side. The disaster was all the spirits and wine bottles were knocked off the shelf of the local off licence shop and smashed. I did offer to lick the floor dry but was told there would be too much glass. Both were 3s on a scale of 8.

 

[Leighb]

Yes, but I didn't notice!! It was in the middle of the night when I was stationed at the RAF Hospital in Germany. I was in the Obstetric unit carrying out a forceps delivery, hence probably not noticing minor distractions such as earthquakes. When I got home my wife said, did you feel the earthquake? What Earthquake?? In fairness it was probably better described as a tremor, but quite widely felt all the same.

 

[john]

Had a few smalll ones living in San Francisco, mostly at night. Remember first time being asleep and hearing what I thought was the sound/vibration of a truck parking in my bedroom - brain couldn’t compute it for a while. After that, brain recognised subsequent tremors straightaway.

 

[colind3782]

Two in North Shropshire!

 

[ghostlymoron]

I've experienced 2.
One in Shropshire in late 80s only minor but it felt like a truck had hit our office building. I was in a senior managers meeting and we just ignored it.
Second was in Cyprus on holiday. This was about 6 on Richter scale and quite unnerving. I was strolling round Limassol when the earth started moving. I headed for an open area and stayed their until movement had stopped to avoid falling masonry. Several aftershocks in subsequent days.

 

[johnalison]

No, but I live in the village where the last earthquake fatality in Britain occurred, in 1884. I live in daily fear of another.

 

[Lon nan Gruagach]

many:
I felt a few of the earthquake storm that hit Manchester, over 100 in a month (biggest was 3.9). Missed the first one,I was singing at the time but one sounded like a truck hitting the end of the terrace, all the windows rattled.
There there was the recent one on the west coast of Scotland. I was sitting at the time and felt the movement, quickly followed by a rumble.

 

[Irish Rover]

There’s constant earthquake activity in Turkey http://www.koeri.boun.edu.tr/scripts/lasteq.asp and on average we would experience 3 or 4 per year which would rattle the house. We had 2 big ones in the last year which really shook the place. One was a 6.6 in Bodrum and the other a 6.3 north of Izmir. Both were followed by hundreds of aftershocks many of which we would have have felt.

 

[greeny]

Several each year in the Algarve. Some you can hardly feel but the bigger ones feel as though the ground is sliding under your feet. (no I'm not getting mixed up with landslides). Never felt them when sailing though.

 

[Capt. Clueless]

When we lived in Turkey, we were often treated to tremours. One notable one was when my wife was in the shower, (She wondered what the hell was going on, and I was downstairs dancing around to the tremour. Another notable occassion was having a coffee on the sea front, and the table and crockery started dancing around along with us and the patio we were on.

 

[NUTMEG]

Two in Iceland. Nothing major, as said above first thought was of a large truck passing outside. Icelandic lady I was with said "oh no, it is just an earthquake, we get them all the time".

 

[Irish Rover]

There was a 7.2 quake in north west Turkey in August 1999 which killed up to 20,000 people. I was in Antalya when it happened so I wasn’t affected but I’ll never forget the panic among the young people working there. Many of them were from Istanbul just working in Antalya for the summer and there were queues for the phones trying to check on their families. Most couldn’t get through as the phone system was badly damaged. I heard stories about youngsters working there whose entire family’s were wiped out.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

One in Glasgow, late 80's, woke me up with the bed wobbling; one in Russia, about 2009, Sakhalin Island in a tall building with the curtains swaying and a definite swaying feeling; the last one was in Saudi Arabia on the 17th floor, 2013, a big slip in Iran which rippled across to Saudi, we were evacuated from the building, not sure what size but it was a a desk shaker with things falling off the tops of cabinets.

 

[Skylark]

I experienced one when I was working in Los Angeles. Iirc it was 1987. Very scary. It brought down a section of overhead roadway. There were several aftershocks, too. One in particular was in the early hours, I literally flew out of bed and lay under a door frame, as per the advice at the time. Not something I care to repeat.

 

[Gerry]

What surprised me was that even at anchor it felt as though we were sat in a bowl of jelly that was wobbling- most disconcerting! And the noise when we were in a marina in Guatemala was amazing, sounded like an express train careerig down the dock. Swiftly followed by an enormous crash as all the bottles and glasses in the bar hit the floor.

 

[sgr143]

I was in Athens with wife and 1-year-old during the 1999 Athens earthquake. We were in our hotel when it hit. It took quite a while before we realised what was going on. Lingered in the hotel stairwell (most stable place(?)), until it seemed to be over. Outside, quite a bit of rubble from building fascias having fallen off. But we weren't in the worst-hit area.

A friend who was in an aircraft at the airport at the time said that they got bounced around quite a bit.

 

[Thistle]

One in Glasgow, late 80's, woke me up with the bed wobbling

Edinburgh in the 80s; bed frequently wobbled but never blamed on earthquakes! Everything steadier these days

 

[vas]

living in Greece, dozens!
unless it's over 5R don't bother, over that it's slightly concerning unless I'm at home which should be good for 7+...

BTW, is that thread ok in PBO, shouldn't it be in the Lounge?

V.

 

[Mistroma]

Yes, fortunately minor but it felt as if the whole room was swaying around a foot or so. We were staying with friends in Tokyo on 35th floor of a fairly modern building. Next day I went to look at a couple of the huge dampers built into each floor. I think that the top floor of the building could move about 10-20 feet in each direction in a bad quake so one we felt barely registered with the locals.

Pretty certain I'll be in another earthquake in a Feb. as I'll be back in Japan for a few weeks. At least most Japanese buildings are designed to cope with a high proportion of earthquakes.

 

[johnalison]

Yes, fortunately minor but it felt as if the whole room was swaying around a foot or so. We were staying with friends in Tokyo on 35th floor of a fairly modern building. Next day I went to look at a couple of the huge dampers built into each floor. I think that the top floor of the building could move about 10-20 feet in each direction in a bad quake so one we felt barely registered with the locals.

Pretty certain I'll be in another earthquake in a Feb. as I'll be back in Japan for a few weeks. At least most Japanese buildings are designed to cope with a high proportion of earthquakes.

I was watching Japanese telly the other day while convalescing and was interested in a programme about a company that makes enormous coil springs to individual orders. The big ones are used to support buildings as part of the damping systems, such as those that you will be relying on. An interesting feature of the firm was that all the staff, including salesmen, have to make at least ten springs per year.