the shakes!

This morning while I was writing my previous post, I felt the floor shaking in my room. At first I thought that maybe people were doing some construction upstairs and I could feel the vibrations or something... but then I noticed that the water bottle on my desk was rippling quite a bit. I was like "huh. this feels pretty weird. are we having an earthquake?" As I have never experienced an earthquake before, I wasn't sure. The vibrations kept going for about 30 seconds, and then stopped. I looked outside and the locals who were working in the yard didn't appear at all concerned... so I continued with my internet-ing.

When I got to class today, I asked a couple of the others if they felt any shaking. They didn't know what I was talking about and looked at me kind of funny. Then I thought that perhaps I imagined the whole thing and began to feel kind of stupid. However, when my roommate got home just now, she asked me if I felt the earthquake. WOO HOO! I'm not crazy!

Anyway, here are the official details. Apparently our quake was a 5.2 on the Richter scale, and it happened about 95km south west of St. George's. A 5.2 is considered to be moderate intensity; shaking is felt, and damage can be done to poorly constructed buildings. I wonder if any of the corrugated iron shacks in town crumpled up? hmmm

The buildings on campus are very well constructed so don't worry about me. They survived hurricane Ivan in 2004 which decimated much of the island, and we have been told that they were built keeping earthquakes in mind as well. I also live on the ground floor of my building, right by an exit so I think I would be in pretty good shape if a bigger quake happened. Let's hope one doesn't though... I think a huge shaker would be quite scary.