Tremor

I've experienced my first earthquake.

Well, more of a tremor, truth be told. I was sitting at my desk when the whole house vibrated beneath me. It lasted only two or three seconds, but I could feel the ground pistoning up and down as the building shuddered.

It was like driving down a washboard road.

The first words out of my mouth were: what the Hell was that?

I've felt vibrations before from heavy equipment operating nearby, but it was night and nothing outside was moving.

Except the ground, that is.

View large image As earthquakes go, it was 3.5 on the Richter scale and was centered around the Dangan Islands, about 36km south-southeast of Hong Kong. According to the Hong Kong Observatory and Beijing's China Earthquake Administration, that zone has a potential to reach a magnitude of 7.5.

This earthquake was the first since 2004. I don't recall that one, which means either I missed it, or it was so weak it didn't make an impression.

Hong Kong's strongest recorded earthquake hit on February 13, 1918, measuring 8 on the Richter scale. The second-strongest quake occurred September 16, 1994, with a magnitude of 6.5 and lasting 30 seconds.

The Dangan Islands lie near the Haifeng Fault Zone, but Hong Kong isn't likely to suffer major tremors as we're about 600 kilometres "from the nearest boundary with the Pacific Plate on the circum-Pacific seismic belt that runs through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines".

It's a good thing too, because I'd hate for three storeys of concrete box to collapse on top of us.

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