More Drama

Last night at about 11.15 we were awoken by a telephone call from one of our Chinese friends. She was frantically trying to tell me something but I couldn't quite understand. Then her husband who could speak a little English came on the line and said "another very strong earthquake, maybe soon, get out of the building!". And so it was the same procedure again of grabbing Tabitha and getting down 12 flights of stairs as quickly as we could.

When we got down to the ground floor there were loads of people leaving the building with bedding and food. After asking around a bit I discovered that there had been a warning on the TV that in the next 48 hours there could be another earthquake as serious as the last one but closer to where we are. We were left thinking what will we do? In the end I decided to go and get some essentials from our apartment as well as warn some other friends in our building.

After doing all this we headed to Aaron and Lois's apartment (who are out of town at the moment, but their appartment is nearest to the ground) and about a dozen of us kipped on the floor.

After a pretty rotten night's sleep we are both feeling pretty fed up, wondering if this is ever going to end. The uncertainty that is accompanying all of these rumours just hangs over everything that we do, it is really hard to get into any type of daily routine. Chances are that this warning is a load of rubbish, but at the same time we would be stupid not to heed warnings that come from experts. We shoudn't complain too much, there are hundreds of thousands of people in worse situations than us, we are still really thankful for what we have, things could have been a lot worse for us. Our prayers go up for those who lost loved ones in the much worse hit areas.

There were thousands of people sleeping at the side of the roads and in parks last night. Nobody seems to be wanting to take any chances. The Chinese people are all really spooked and it seems as though this is also the case in other cities. I took a few pictures last night of the scenes on the streets:

Thanks to all for the kind messages of encouragement we have had, it has been a real blessing.