Panic!
Suddenly, everything around us started moving. Even the concrete floor felt like wobbling jello.
Earthquake! We rushed out of the hotel and joined the other panicked guests outside.
A few minutes later, another Westerner emerged. She had been in the bathtub when it hit and had literally flown down eight flights of stairs to reach safety.
We all stood there shaking. After an hour, everyone decided to go back inside.
Then came another tremor. Paul jumped out of the window of our ground-floor room.
It turned out to be a false alarm caused by an overloaded truck passing by.
Afterwards, it took another year before we could sleep peacefully through the rumble of a heavy truck driving by.