Andie, who has experienced minor quakes over the three years he has lived in Taiwan, explained: “What you’re supposed to do is to wait at a place where nothing’s going to fall on your head.
“I chose the archway between my living room and kitchen because the wall there is more solid. And if the house collapsed, I’d be near my kitchen where there’s food and water.”
Once the first quake was over, Andie grabbed his phone and wallet before heading downstairs to contact his wife and children.
While his children’s teacher confirmed the kids were fine and gathered at the field, he could not contact his wife as she had left her phone at home. So he went back to his home to wait for her.
He shared that it was only after he saw his neighbour looking pale that he realised how severe the earthquake was.
“You see, Singaporeans don’t know,” he chuckled. “It’s the same for me, I didn’t know how bad the situation was. In my mind, I thought, ‘Okay, just stay safe first’.”
“If even the Taiwanese are freaking out, you know this is not normal,” he said.
As for the damages to his home, he shared he had lost many crystals on his Asian Television Awards trophy, and that Kate’s Star Awards trophy was chipped. But the “most heartbreaking” damage was to his iMac as its screen was “completely smashed”.