Earthquake Rocks China
This afternoon, I returned to my office from an Amcham luncheon to find everyone preparing to evacuate our offices on the fourth floor of Parkview Center near the Holiday Inn Lido Hotel in Beijing. Moments before, my colleagues reported, our building shook and there were already reports of buildings throughout Beijing being evacuated.
Believe it or not, an earthquake in far away Sichuan Province was felt in Beijing. This is equivalent to an earthquake in Denver being felt in New York City. The earthquake occurred today (May 12) in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province at 2:28 PM local time measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. According to China Central Television (CCTV), Beijing had its own earthquake, a much smaller 3.9 temblor, seven minutes after Chengdu’s shake, but it seems most people were reacting to the event farther away. In addition to Beijing, Shanghai, and Chonqqing, cities in Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hubei provinces felt the quake.
ASIMCO has a small factory in Sichuan Province, which is the only one of ours I know of to suffer any damage. Minimal structural damage consisted mainly of broken windows and cracked walls. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

