For a table of friends enjoying lunch Friday outside Perry World House on the first non-rainy afternoon in days, the earthquake was a surprising end to the week, and provided some laughs in addition to serious thoughts about how the rest of the world endures them on a much more serious scale.
Linda Wu, a fourth-year student at the Wharton School from Fairfax, Virginia, said she was in the Wharton Academic Research Building when the earthquake hit, but she assumed someone in a group study room upstairs was pushing a really heavy cart across the floor. “It was a cool experience, to be able to experience an earthquake but not have it be a natural disaster,” she said. “It’s a reminder that we are at the mercy of so much more out there.”
Paras Nahar, a fourth-year student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science from Millburn, New Jersey, said that, when he felt the shaking in his apartment, he went downstairs to find all his dishes clattering in his cupboards. “So, I thought it really could be nothing but an earthquake,” he said. He agreed with Wu that “it was a cool experience, but I know it sounds privileged to say that.”
Vikram Bala, a fourth-year student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science from Millburn, New Jersey, said he went on X (formerlyTwitter) to check to see if it really was a quake, and then his family members started to text him to make sure he was OK. “This isn’t something we’re used to in New Jersey,” he said. “It’s a reminder we don’t have that much control over our lives.”
Experiencing an earthquake was nothing new for Josh Valluru, a fourth-year student from San Jose, California, in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He’s been through at least 10 back home near the Santa Cruz fault line, and said that on the one hand Friday’s experience wasn’t too bad, but on the other hand he was a bit alarmed since he didn’t think he’d have to deal with quakes on the East Coast.
“When my apartment started to sway a little bit and the floor was uneasy, it was a repeat of being back home in California,” he said. “I was surprised because a 4.8 earthquake out here isn’t a small thing. It puts a whole new meaning to the Penn Quakers.”
