Earthquake!

This afternoon around 2:28pm I was sitting at my computer and feeling kind of dizzy. It was a strange feeling, kind of woozy, like I'd had a stiff drink and the affects were hitting my system big time.

But after a while, the dizziness went away and I thought nothing of it.

And then a colleague came over and told me there was an earthquake!

The epicentre is in Wenchuan County, in Sichuan Province. It's where the Woolong Nature Reserve is, that does research and breeding of pandas! Hope those cuddly creatures are OK.

The 7.8-magnitude quake could be felt as far away as Vietnam, Pakistan and Thailand.

Over 100 are confirmed dead, but Chinese state media are saying the death toll could reach as high as 5,000.

Premier Wen Jiabao flew on a chartered plane to the disaster area. Rescue and medical workers are on their way as well.

Meanwhile state media doesn't have much coverage on the quake. CCTV 1 is dedicated to broadcasting about the quake, but it's three people in a studio, two hosts and an expert holding up paper maps of the area.

Other local channels have news stories of the quake, but not many eye witness accounts.

The rest are broadcasting programming as scheduled.

On the Internet people are venting their frustrations, saying Premier Wen isn't showing his genuine concern for the people, reading out a scripted statement on the plane. They are also complaining that state media aren't broadcasting from Chengdu or from the epicentre itself, giving little information.

And some are speculating the natural disaster is signaling the changing of the mandate of heaven. We'll have to see.