A fun vacation should never include an earthquake. Unfortunately, local celebrity couple Nick Teo and Hong Ling experienced one during their recent holiday in China.
According to Chinese publications, a 5.5-magnitude earthquake struck Gaoxian county in Yibin, Sichuan province, at 12.12am on June 29. It struck at a depth of 6km, leaving 13 people injured.
Nick, 37, and 31-year-old Hong Ling were in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, at the time, and he posted an Instagram Story about the earthquake.
“I thought the guest next door slammed the door too hard. The whole wall and floor were shaking. But it lasted quite a while. Then we realised it was an earthquake. The whole building was shaking a little,” he wrote.
AsiaOne contacted Nick and he told us: “It was already past midnight and we were both in bed using our phones. We heard crackling sounds coming from the windows and surroundings, followed by a few loud door bangs and slight vibrations from the wall our backs were leaning against.”
While Hong Ling astutely asked if it was an earthquake, Nick thought it was due to the hotel guest next door “slamming the door a little too hard”, so they both went back to using their phones.
However, moments later, the shaking intensified with the entire building swaying from side to side, prompting Hong Ling to search online, yielding nothing.
“A short while later, I still felt a little weird, so I tried searching the internet again and reports finally appeared, confirming that there was indeed an earthquake,” said Nick. “It was the first time both of us had ever experienced one.
“Finding out it really was an earthquake was a little worrying, especially since our room was on a high floor.”
After the tremors had subsided, they went to bed. Nick remarked that after Hong Ling fell asleep, he was still quite worried about possible aftershocks throughout the night.
“Looking back, our sense of crisis was probably not the best that night,” reflected Nick. “The guests were probably evacuating the hotel but we were still in the room wondering what happened.”
The next morning, the couple read that the earthquake’s epicentre was about 200km from Chengdu and thankfully, they were also set to head to Yunnan.
Nick added: “I was worried the earthquake might affect our flight, but thankfully everything went as planned and the flight departed as scheduled. Once in Yunnan, there were no more tremors – probably because we were much farther away from the affected area.”
While in China, they went wild mushroom foraging, skydiving and also dined in ancient garb for Nick’s birthday – a day before the earthquake – before they arrived safely in Singapore. Based on Hong Ling’s Instagram Story today (July 10), she appears to be in Vietnam.
Hong Ling and Nick are currently starring in Mediacorp’s new crime drama No Other Way as love interests and also co-star in In His Hands, which comes out in September.
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kristy.chua@asiaone.com
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