Maps and panic

I found this online map that shows earthquakes at the U.S. Geological Survey website that is really interesting. You can see where quakes are happening all over the world. You can look here see a closeup map of the area we are in. ChengDu is not listed on my map, but it is south of Mianyang and west of Chongqing, so you can get an idea of where we are. This map only shows the quakes that are of a 4.0 magnitude or higher, and only for the last seven days.

I also found this article which has a lot of info about what has been going on in ChengDu the last day or so...

Aftershock warning sows panic in China

I wasn't too sure what was happening last night, but it didn't seem good. I was reading a book and decided to go to bed at around 11:00pm. It was then that I noticed that everyone was leaving the apartment building. I could also hear some announcements going on (in Chinese) on the apartment complex PA system. There was also a lot of traffic noise. I decided to go out and see what was going on, and that's when I found out about the news about the aftershock prediction.

I decided that I wouldn't be able to sleep with all the noise, so I went for a walk to see if I could find a store open that was selling cigarettes. The amount of traffic (both human and automobiles) was amazing. It was the most crowded I had ever seen the street and sidewalks in front of my apartment. After coming back from the store I ran into a group of Israeli's that also live in my apartment complex who were camped out on the sidewalk. After talking to them for awhile I realized it was almost 3:00am, so I decided to go to bed.