Much of life we plan for, as best we can, and much is pure chance. On the pure chance side of things, my family and I were in Hualien, Taiwan, for the 7.4 magnitude earthquake on April 3rd. It was a family vacation. My wife and I are raising our grandson. His other grandfather is Taiwanese and lives in Taiwan half of the year. My grandson traveled to Taiwan last summer, but my wife and I had never been, so we spent a week in Taiwan visiting the other grandfather. We were on the third day of a three-day stay in Hualien on the day of the earthquake.
Hualien is a tourist city on the east coast of Taiwan, fronting the Pacific Ocean. The city is 11 miles from the epicenter of the quake. At 7:58 am, a 7.4 earthquake hit. I’ve been through plenty of 6.0 to 6.4 quakes, several in Seattle and a few while traveling in California.
Magnitude 7.4 should be 10X as strong as 6.4 on the Richter scale and I’d say that’s about right. My wife was at the bathroom sink and I was in the shower. So other than being naked, soaking wet and not knowing a word of Chinese, I was perfectly positioned to weather the quake. The violence of the quake was impressive. I thought the building would be torn apart. I waited for the ceiling to come down. It seemed to last for a very long time. Other than a lamp falling over, our room seemed to be undamaged.
After the shaking stopped, I hurriedly finished my shower, got dressed and quickly finished packing. It was planned to be a travel day, so our bags were mostly ready. While finishing up, I heard what sounded like a thunderstorm in the hallway. I opened the room door and found water pouring out of the ceiling fixtures and ankle-deep in the hall. Of course, now that the door was open, the room started to flood. It looked like something out of a disaster movie.
By the time we got out of the room, it was ankle-deep in water. I carried the suitcases down the stairway, into the lobby and then outdoors. The elevators had shut down, of course. I assumed that the water pouring through the building was because of broken pipes but was told later that the water tank on the roof fell over and emptied thousands of gallons of water into the building. It’s a 9-story hotel and we were on the 3rd floor, so that water had come quite a way before pouring into where we were.
The other grandfather and my grandson had been having breakfast in the lobby when the quake hit. They got under the table. Then they had to leave without their belongings. Later, despite water everywhere, they were able to go back into the hotel and retrieve their belongings.
News coverage internationally was prominent and sensational. A few buildings in the city were partially collapsed and speculation was that people would be found in the rubble. We didn’t see any structural damage to buildings. People went back to their normal routines within minutes. The hotel we were in suffered significant damage from the water, but we didn’t see any structural damage.
We were fortunate to find another hotel to stay the extra night. Our ‘new’ hotel showed no signs of anything out of the ordinary, except the elevators were shut down. We went to the train station before we heard the rail system was down and there were thousands of people there. I’m not sure where they stayed the night, but we were really comfortable.
There were been dozens of aftershocks, some over 6.0. The locals didn’t even react to them. It’s just business as usual.
One of the main tourist attractions here is Taroko Gorge, an amazing river valley, with huge rock walls, with tunnels and trails carved into the rock. This is where some of the deaths occurred due to falling rocks. We had been there the day before the quake and had to wear helmets at times due the danger of the falling rocks. Photos in the news showed some collapsed tunnels where we had walked the day before.
“Other than that…
Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?” I enjoyed Taiwan. The food is weird, the people are nice, and it is definitely a first world country. It is significantly safer than America. My grandson misplaced his backpack with this computer on the day of the earthquake. He set it down on a pallet of beer on the sidewalk in front of a convenience store. Hours later we came back, and it was still there, untouched.
Transportation systems are excellent. The trains run on time. Everything just seems to work. Nice.
Quite an adventure and we were very fortunate to escape unscathed.
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