Around 6 PM yesterday I was folding and putting clothes into our dresser and Brian was napping when the ground started shaking.  My first thought was that a big truck was driving through town but then I realized that I couldn’t hear a motor.  Instinctually I grabbed the back of my chair and the dresser door and watched out the ger door as everything around me shock back and forth.  Brian sat up and starred at me as we both realized that we had just experienced our first Mongolian earthquake.  The quake lasted about 10 seconds and while we didn’t suffer any damage it was enough to get the adrenaline pumping.  Going outside we found Darkhuu and quickly called her daughter Tsend Ayoush in Ulaanbaatar to make sure that they were okay but it quickly became apparent that it was very local earthquake.

For the rest of the evening the earthquake was pretty much all anyone talked about and many people, especially in Dalanzadgad, decided to spend the night in the gers of friends and family instead of apartments. Even if a ger collapses on you you won’t get hurt very much! The rumor was that there would be an aftershock around 9 PM so everyone in town sat outside but nothing happened until 2 AM and then we only knew about it since Santiago woke us up barking.

This morning Brian checked on the internet and learned that the earthquake was centered about 30 kilometers north of here and registered in at 5.7 on the Richter scale.  Not the strongest quake but it certainly made for a memorable first day in town.

Update In total we had three earthquakes within a 48 hour span.  Fun stuff.