WASHINGTON STATE — The deadly earthquake that hit about midday Friday in Myanmar and Thailand sent people running out of office buildings, condominium towers, and schools.
It also collapsed buildings and killed more than 150 people. Several people from western Washington were amid the quake and several aftershocks in Thailand.
Christopher Paulette, who grew up in Lacey, now teaches third grade at an international school in east Bangkok. He’s lived there for about a dozen years. He said the shaking lasted for about 30 seconds and felt much different than the Nisqually quake he experienced here in 2001.
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“So in the shallow earthquake, you can feel the buildings going this way, like it is in a push cart going back-and-forth or something like that, so I could fill my building just doing that back-and-forth motion,” Paulette told KOMO News.
He didn’t have any children in his classroom and since they don’t practice earthquake drills there, they treated it like a fire drill and evacuated the building. About seven hours away from Bangkok, in Chiang Mai, Saviya Robinson had a very different experience during that quake.
“It really did feel like you were on the sea and you’re in a bad storm. It was rolling. It wasn’t a shake at all. It was rolling, and it actually made me faint,” she told KOMO News.
Robinson said she felt like she was seasick and instantly suffered a headache that lasted for several hours. She lives in Woodinville but is currently traveling the world with her husband and 7-year-old son.
Robinson did not see much damage in Chiang Mai, but she said businesses closed right away. In east Bangkok, Paulette said he found no damage in his 15th-floor condo. But the high rise, under construction, that collapsed was very scary.
He also said that building authorities in Bangkok are telling people they should not worry if they see any cracks in their walls. Paulette also shared an observation on how well communications worked after the quake. Paulette said he was able to get a video call through to his family in Washington.
Both told KOMO News that traffic was a mess everywhere and they said that’s a great reminder to create a family plan of how and where to meet up with family members.
