SHAH ALAM - Many Malaysians started their Friday morning feeling tremors and blamed it on vertigo and low blood pressure issues only to discover it was really an earthquake.
Sinar Karangkraf Editor-in-Chief Rozaid Rahman said he felt like his entire body was shaking and the world was about to go upside down.
At first, he thought he was about to faint but because he did not have a history of low blood pressure, he quickly dismissed the idea.
The sudden tremors turned out to be after-effects of an earthquake measuring 6.1 Richter scale that struck Indonesia's North Sumatra.
The quake was felt in several areas in Klang Valley, namely Kuala Lumpur, Cyberjaya, Putrajaya and Port Klang, as well as Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Pahang.
Malaysian Meteorological Department has since assured that there are no threats of a tsunami. Those working in the offices across the city centre were immediately evacuated from buildings.
Thirty-two-year-old Adilah Azmi, who works in a building at Bukit Damansara, told Sinar Daily that around 9.40am to 9.45am, the building suddenly began shaking.
"I really thought I was having a vertigo episode and tried to calm myself down. I only realised it wasn't just me when all my colleagues stood up and were fussing about it.
"Everyone began to panic. We thought it had something to do with our building since it's quite old.
"We only realised what was happening when we checked our messages," she said, adding that they were instructed to assemble downstairs immediately.
Wan Qashifa Aneesa from Tabung Haji headquarters in Kuala Lumpur said many either did not realise it or chose to ignore it at first before some colleagues voiced it out.
"It was just subtle at first, but when some reported feeling the ground shaking multiple times, only then realised what was happening.
"We were asked to evacuate from our offices and have been told to work from home after waiting for half an hour,” she said.
Many Malaysians took their experience to Twitter, sharing what they were doing when it happened and how they felt.
One Twitter user @bobmalek said that the ground shook so hard that the television began to sway before hitting the ground, while @pualiping said she was in bed when the earthquake happened and was awoken from her slumber.
She originally attributed the sudden shakes to her upper neighbour until the bed began to shake even harder.
Twitter user @Garighthere blamed it on drowsiness due to lack of sleep only to witness her colleagues scrambling for the exit. She then realise the ground started to shake even more.
"Imagine working on the 19th floor in a 24-storey building,” she added, referring to the swarm of office workers running downstairs to save themselves when the earthquake hit.
User @FuchsiaFudge, whose office desk was by the window, was attending an online meeting at the time of the incident. She saw the curtain rail sway and immediately took to Twitter to confirm her suspicions.
Some who missed the tremors managed to joke about it, Twitter user @katakuri_stan said her mom wasn't lying when she said she was a "dead sleeper", adding that she could even sleep throughout a bomb explosion and not realise it.
"...and look - there was an earthquake and I slept through it," she said. Others blamed ghosts; @kwishy said she thought it was a ghost shaking her bed until she opened up Twitter to see the earthquake news while @arishiax said "I love how most of us thought we kena kacau hantu (disturbed by ghosts) first instead of #earthquake because I did too". At 9.39am today, an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck Indonesia's northeast of Pasaman Barat at a depth of 10 kilometres.
Tremors were felt in several areas in the Klang Valley, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang and Johor. Malaysian Meteorological Department assured that there is no threat of a tsunami.
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