地震 - earthquake

Here is Nick's account:

Yeah, we felt it. It was a 7.8 a few hundred kilometers south of here. When it hit Alison's class, it made her dizzy enough to reach out and grab a desk. She looked up and the lights were swinging. I thought my language tutor was messing around, shaking the couch I was sitting on. Cabinets and windows rattled, and he said, “Crap it's an earthquake, let's go!" Thought about shoes, went in socks. Ground was still wobbly when we got out away from the building. After 15 minutes or so, ran back up to put on shoes, grab Harry's stuff, lock and close the door this time. Was on my way to check on Alison when she walked up. She'd left all her stuff, students' exams and all, in the classroom. A couple of kids came 10 minutes later; they'd packed her stuff and brought it to her.

50 year old teachers never felt anything like it. We heard about "The Big One," the Tangshan quake of 76, another 7.8, at least 4 times as we wandered around. There was nothing to do but wander, since we couldn't go inside. Waded through the 10,000 students turned out of classes and dorms. Cultural note: the crowds at the corner stores aren't on beer runs; they're scared college kids calling mom.  

Sat down at a sidewalk beer spot, talked to some students about the quake, America, the Olympics. Pretended not to understand when they asked us about T1bet (political bullet dodged!). Went to Ron's place because we heard he was trying to get up an earthquake party. Turned out he wasn't, but we got invited to a nice noodle dinner at a Hui restaurant, microwave popcorn for dessert.

A few hundred kids out on the soccer field tonight. Lots of them mean to stay. We're gonna stick to the apartment. The little tremor at 8 didn't make us feel any better, but I'm pretty sure we'll live. Our prayers are with those who won't.  

We haven't tried to contact our host family... that's a good idea. The people we DID try to contact in Chengdu apparently don't have cell service. But the news is saying Chengdu itself wasn't badly hit, just surrounding areas.

Don't have too many more details yet that you couldn't get from CNN. Aside from showing videos from universities while talking about middle schools a hundred miles away, their coverage is supposed to be more or less okay.

You could also check shanghaiist.com. They have updates every 10-30 minutes, with credible links to Chinese and overseas sources. They're saying the death toll is almost certainly over 10,000, but shaky communications are preventing contact with the worst hit areas. They're calling it a 7.9 now. The one we had at 4:30 this morning was pretty freaky. The one at 4:50 was reported to be a 4.8 centered just south of here on the provincial border.

The impact on the school itself is pretty negligible, all things considered. A few of the teachers evacuated our building at 4:30, but we didn't bother. A lot of students slept out, and there's a pretty wide range of opinions on that. First student I talked to said that he didn't feel safe in tall buildings, so he was going to sleep in the field. He reacted with shock when we told him we had no such intention. Second student said he figured the majority of the students on the soccer field (many hundreds, maybe low thousands, if you count the kids on the volleyball and basketball courts) weren't scared, just looking to have some fun. The drinking we saw looked pretty controlled. A third student told me she wasn't allowed in the dorm, so she was sleeping out, though her 3 male friends agreed more with the second student's 'party' theory. A fourth group of students on the volleyball courts seemed nervous about the whole thing, but mostly interested in playing cards.

We did hear an as yet unconfirmed report of a high school collapsing in the nearby countryside. So far nothing like that anywhere near us.