One of the most terrifying incidents that people could experience is surviving the experience of an earthquake. In fact, few days ago I was in home watching TV with my wife and mother in law when suddenly we felt a strange buzzing noise and fast shaking that scared us. Daily we are invaded for lots of information about what to do in the case of a disaster; moreover, I had previous experiences about earthquakes, but we just staid there looking our faces without reaction; after the fright, I changed the TV stations to search for information about what have happened and we was worried because we didn't knew if it would come after shocks which probably could be stronger.
The last bay area's earthquake had as epicenter the piedmont area just a few blocks from west Oakland where I live and only eight miles deep from the superficies, which is very close in term of seismology; Moreover, we know that we live in a time's bomb or potentially dangerous seismic area and it is something that all people wait for a big one which could causes destruction. Thus, even a small quake, causes panic in the population. .
Twenty years ago in March of 1983 I was living in Colombia, my native country, I survived a 6.1 in the Richter scale earthquake; the Richter scale has 8.0 as the top for the strongest earthquakes and 6.3 is considered strong; however, this scale don't express the magnitude of damage caused by an earthquake and it depends of other factors like how densely populated could be an area, or what kind of constructions are built and how old they are.
I had been visiting my relatives in a city called Popayan, a middle city around two hundred people of population, which is known as the "white city- because the architecture of their buildings conserves the details of the colonial époque when the Spanish used this city as a rest area in their travel from Cartagena at the north to Quito (Ecuador) and Lima (Peru) at the south .