Did You Feel The Earth Move??

Earthquake in T.O!! Now this is not a common thing around this area of Canada. Although, it can happen anywhere around the world, but for us southern Canadians we were all just a little surprised when the earth moved. As for I, sitting at my desk at work I thought I was going a little crazy when things started moving. Yet, I guess so many others did today too. The quake struck at 1:41pm ET in all Southern Ontario and parts of Quebec. The Geological Survey reported a 5.5 magnitude for this area, although other parts of the region were reported only 5.0. However, this is still pretty big for this area. As my brother, who is a Geologist assistant, mentioned to me today, “wow this is big for Ontario and I wrote my thesis on that fault line.” As reported on the news stations across the country, the quake was felt for about 30 seconds. Many people where evacuated from buildings, but no damage was reported. Well as for me, it felt a lot less than 30 seconds and really was just a shocker to know it can happen here in Ontario. I remember tones of times in San Diego the quakes happened and everyone was so use to it, and that I was the only one kind of freaking out. Plus it was my first time feeling a quake and knowing that I was completely out of control of what would happened next, kind of had me in knots.

As for my backpacking experiences and feeling a quake, well it rarely happened to me but it did occur once. I was in Sicily a few years ago traveling solo. At this point in time I was backpacking solo for now about 4 months, and getting on and off trains was now just a routine. Although it wasn’t until one late afternoon where my train was delayed for about 30 minutes. As I was waiting for the train, and sitting in the waiting area I felt a slight tremor. Without really understanding what others where saying, I found out later on that evening while on the train, that it was a small quake. I was just glad it wasn’t a big one, since I was alone with a language barrier surrounding me.

Have you ever experienced a quake while backpacking?