jarðskjálfti!
Breaking Iceland Report news: an earthquake just rumbled through the office, shaking me in my chair, and making the computer monitors shake on their stands. It lasted only a couple seconds. The craziest part was the sound, a big rumbling from the bowels of the Land. But now people are pretty much going about their business, in true Icelandic form. One guy sitting just feet away from me didn't even feel it.
This is my second one, other than some I slept through in California. The first one I remember was in Somerville, Massachusetts, early one Saturday morning when I had to be in at work before 7 a.m. The whole Somerville Theater rocked on its foundations like a container ship at sea. The Icelandic quake just now was shakier and faster, sort of like the whole office building was driving too fast over a potholed Icelandic country road.
This is my second one, other than some I slept through in California. The first one I remember was in Somerville, Massachusetts, early one Saturday morning when I had to be in at work before 7 a.m. The whole Somerville Theater rocked on its foundations like a container ship at sea. The Icelandic quake just now was shakier and faster, sort of like the whole office building was driving too fast over a potholed Icelandic country road.
posted by JB at 6.3.06
4 Comments:
Looks to me, from Iceland's self-aware earthquake web mapping tool (thanks, E!), that the earthquake was bigger than a 3, and the epicenter was right near Kleifarvatn, my favorite spooky lake. That's just a few miles away from here. If you're looking at this site in the next 48 hours, you should see the spot marked with a green star.
Morgunblaðið's web service describes the earthquake as "brisk", and says it happened at Krísuvík at 2:32 p.m. It measured 4.5 on the Richter scale:
Jarðskjálfti við Krísuvík
Snarpur jarðskjálfti, 4,5 stig á Richter samkvæmt sjálfvirkum skjálftalista Veðurstofunnar, varð við Krísuvík klukkan 14:32 í dag. Skjálftinn fannst vel á höfuðborgarsvæðinu.
Here is a more substantial article from Morgunblaðið, with a nice picture, too.
I was on the schoolbus one morning, (I was about seven years old) when I experienced my first large earthquake. (Being from So Cal- anything smaller then a 5 is ignored.) It was a 6.1 which knocked down the entire old section of my town and cancelled school that day (we were the epicenter.)
But if you want a rude awakening- when I was in high school a 7.3 earthquake hit the desert- I remember waking up because the earthquake had tossed me out of bed- I was so startled and shocked, and the noise was terrific- the ground groaning like some uncontrolable monster. And my house- my house sound like it was going to come down- my mother was screaming, my dad yelling and the neighbor's dogs were barking like mad. I crawled to the doorway and held onto the frame for dear life.
Everything turned out okay (the house got a new crack- the cracks are named by earthquake btw- we refer to them as "oh that's the Whittier quake- and that one is the Northridge crack- oh yeah- that one- that's the Landers crack- big quake that one was..." ) But I will never forget the noise of the quake mixed with the terrified yelling of my parents. I hope you never wake up to something like that.
Remember duck and cover! Or at least get in a doorway and hang on.
Skrifa ummæli
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