Bolton teacher in China flees earthquake-hit home

5:06pm Tuesday 13th May 2008

A BOLTON teacher who is working at a university in China has told how she fled her home as a massive earthquake rocked the country.

Penny Hope was having a shower when her apartment block started to "shake like a jelly."

Fearing the building was about to collapse, she dashed into the street from her sixth-storey flat wearing just a towel Miss Hope, aged 36, said: "I've never been so frightened in all my life. I thought I was going to die. I got outside and everyone was out in the street. "I thought: Oh my god, it's an earthquake."

Miss Hope, a former art student at Bolton College, has spent the past five years teaching English at Chengdu University in Chengdu, a city of 11 million people just 100 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake in Sichuan province.

She said the roof of the school, where she is principal to around 200 students, caved in but no-one there died: "I didn't have any classes in the afternoon so I went home for a shower..

"Suddenly the floor started moving and the walls were shaking like jelly.

"I thought the building was collapsing. It was such a horrible noise. I threw a towel on and ran down 12 flights of stairs to get outside.

"The tremors lasted about three minutes. People just ran out screaming."

Miss Hope says that shortly after the tremors stopped she went back up to her sixth-floor flat.

She said: "I couldn't believe it was still standing.

"My heaviest furniture like the wardrobe had moved a foot, something that had been on the bathroom shelf was in the kitchen, and my sliding windows were open."

The walls in the apartment are also cracked and Miss Hope says fears of another quake toppling buildings in her neighbourhood has caused people to camp outside.

"We're going to sleep in the local park until we hear it's safe," she said.

"We're still getting 8 or 9 smaller ones a day which are enough to move the ground.

"Everyone is buying sleeping bags and I've bought a shower curtain because it is pouring here.

"And we can't go back into the school yet. The international schools are waiting for inspectors to check them first."

The 7.9 magnitude earthquake has so far officially claimed 12,000 lives but there are at least another 10,000 people buried under rubble.

It has also disrupted the country's communications network and Miss Hope's dad, Ken Priestley, who lives in Churchill Drive in Little Lever, struggled to contact his daughter when he heard of the disaster.

"I read about it yesterday morning," the 72-year-old said. "I couldn't get in contact with her.

"Her sister got through by text and eventually I got in touch by phone. She's doing okay.

Meanwhile, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has advised against all but essential travel to Sichuan province. It was continuing to establish just how many Britons might be in the region.

An FCO spokeswoman said: "We have no confirmed reports of any Britons being hurt in the earthquake. We are working on trying to track down all the Britons in the area."

The Foreign Office issued a new telephone number - 020 7008 0000 - for relatives having difficulty contacting loved ones in China.

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