Earthquake Shook My Office Building

Last Wednesday's late afternoon, around 6.15pm, I was still in my office trying to touch up some loose end for a document before going off. I was leaning towards my work area and looking at the laptop closely.

My boss came out from his room asking a general question "Did you feel it?". "Feel what" was my response.

He said that the building could be moving. At that of time, I relaxed and leaned onto my chair. Then I felt the chair swaying left to right and vice versa.

I said "I felt it now!"

Straightaway, I moved to the pantry area and looked at the construction site for "The Intermark", an on-going development that is taking place where once the Yow Chuan Plaza stood.

Noticed no work is being carried out and thus, the building wasn't affected by the construction activities. Wasted no time and shut down laptop, moved out as fast as possible. I took the second lift that stopped at our floor. No time to think of running down the steps from 31st floor.

The idea of an earthquake struck me but with the construction activities just adjacent to our 58 storey Vista Tower (formerly known as Empire Tower), we doubted the safety of the building.

Upon reaching ground floor, the security personnel requested us to run instead of walking. Maannnnnnnnnnnnn, what tension!

Upon reaching outside, lots of people were already gathered. Security personnel moved us further away standing just next to the busy Jalan Tun Razak.








One thing I noticed, there wasn't any alarm at all to warn us. It was all phone calls that got us down.

Later on, another colleague from another floor did mention that alarm was sounded but when he got down, so many people had evacuated the building long before him.









As I walked further away, I noticed that the construction workers actually evacuated the whole area much faster than we had evacuated our building.

Two of my colleagues (in this pict) still have time to pose for this shot.

What happened to the alarm and the PA system?


We heard from someone that a person who came down earlier saw our office building swaying.

That's ridiculous. If that had happened, the building would have collapsed. That person ought to go for eye check-up. Or was actually too frightened from the swaying effect.










A colleague of mine who stayed back most of the days felt very relieved. He said that he won't feel guilty in leaving for home at 6.30pm hahahaha. Off he went.

Some colleagues can't go home at all. Reason - their cars are still in the office building.

Well, I parked far far away ....... just next to the BMW showroom. When I walked till the BMW showroom, I noticed the workers at this 4 storey building had also ran down in wake of the strong shake ................... confirmed it was an earthquake.

Reached home and a colleague updated me that an earthquake tragedy struck Padang, Indonesia with a richter scale of 7.6. That's awfully high.
Tags: Earthquake, Richter Scale, Padang, Earthquake In Indonesia, Vista Tower, Intermark, Jalan Tun Razak