A Dundee-based MSP has shared his experience after a magnitude 4.8 earthquake shook New York on Friday.
Maurice Golden, Conservative MSP for North East Scotland, was in the middle of meetings when the quake rattled the city.
He said: “I was 14 floors up in a meeting and the building shook a little. It wasn’t like paintings were falling off the walls but you felt it shaking.
“I said: ‘what on earth was that?’, and they said that because it’s an old building these things sometimes happen.
“A few minutes later all our phones started buzzing. I got a message saying: ‘there’s been an earthquake in New York, please stay inside. Do not move if you need assistance.’
“I don’t even know how I got the message, they must recognise each phone in the area.
“I asked what we should do and they said: ‘never mind, it’s happened before, we’ll just continue.'”
Golden couldn’t believe how the relaxed the city’s residents were following the warning.
He said: “It was nonchalant. Even though there’s warnings going off on our phones I was told to just put my phone on silent so we could continue.
“If it was half an hour earlier I would have been walking to the meeting near Wall Street and thinking: ‘what do I do?’
“They gave me the confidence because if I was on my own I’d have been terrified, I’d have been on the phone to my wife telling her I loved her.”
New York experiences 4.8 magnitude earthquake
Maurice continued: “I’ve had three warnings on my phone. I was in another meeting and they were going on about how these messages are so annoying.
“No one really registered what was happening, they just carried on regardless.
“I was terrified getting the lift down. What if something happened and I was stuck in this lift alone?
“There’s often follow-up tremors after an earthquake and I just wanted to get on ground level again. The second meeting was on the 22nd floor as well!”
Since the earthquake, the Big Apple seems to be running as normal.
Maurice said: “Everyone is going back around their daily business, people are walking around and shops are still open.
“You might expect to see more police on the street but it’s just like any other day.
“There’s been another three warnings since the earthquake warning people to stay indoors but everyone is just getting on with it.”
City mayor, Eric Adams, took to social media on Friday afternoon to advise that New York had no indications of “major life safety or infrastructure issues from the earthquake”.
