Chasing earthquakes

I was setting at my desk this afternoon when the room started bucking. There's been several tremors in Tokyo recently so I assumed it was just another one. But it kept getting worse and the excited chatter from my Japanese colleagues in the adjacent room died down and then turned to screams as plaster started falling and light fixtures crashed down. I opened my door and stood under the frame but everyone else was crawling under their desks. I looked down the hall to the exit stairwell and started to walk toward it but I couldn't walk. I was being tossed around too much.

Stuff was falling off of shelves. People were just looking at each other - apparently looking for an answer to what to do. After a while it stopped long enough for us to get to the exit and down six flights to the outside. Out in the parking lot we could see the building bending and swaying and someone yelled to get away from the building. Cars in the parking lot were swaying back and forth and alarms were going off. An old stone pillar toppled over on the lawn. Windows were breaking out of the building across the street.

They say it was the worst earthquake in Japan in 100 years. As I write this tonight my apartment is still swaying from an aftershock. Ok, that's all the earthquake experience I need for this lifetime.