The Day the Earth Trembled

Chongqing, China

I believe I have to thank God for this. And when I say this it's more than just a few idiomatic words. If I hadn't changed my mind at the last minute I would be in Chengdu now and there's no telling what might have happened...
The ground shook. Gently at first, then stronger. Earthquake. The hostel building I was in is built on wooden stilts. It quivered. Nobody here had seen or felt this before. People ran into the street in fright. A flood of others came running down the steep alleyways. Staff shouted at me to get out an run. I don't think anybody knew where they were running. I'm also not sure why I wasn't frightened. In fact, I've rarely been so calm. I looked back at them and quietly wondered why they were so scared. The only thing I felt was excitement: this was my first real earthquake. Maybe I instinctively knew that this was weak, that there was no real danger to us. I even sent a friend a text message saying: "Wow, cool, there was just a small earthquake here."
A little later, reports started coming in from Sichuan Province, the place where I had intended to go. On my ship down the Yangzi we also saw the first TV images. Numbers were coming in and rising fast. Tens of thousands dead or missing. In Germany that's entire towns. It wasn't cool anymore. I now feel embarrassed for that text message. May God help these people.