The Earthquake

7.8 on the Richter scale, an incredibly powerful earthquake, luckily China is perhaps better prepared than other nations of similar size and economic development to cope with this disaster, and the army has, no doubt, already swung into action. I experienced an earthquake that was 6.4 at its epicentre when I lived in Taiwan, but my experience amongst the earthquake-reinforced buildings of Taipei does not even begin to allow me to imagine what it must have been like in the towns and cities of Sichuan.