Taiwan’s Hualien was hit by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, the strongest the island has seen in 25 years, on Wednesday (Apr 3) morning. The quake was felt throughout Taiwan.
Following the quake, many local celebrities – such as Hong Huifang, Yvonne Lim, Andie Chen as well as Mark Lee – took to their socials to assure everyone that they were safe.
In an interview with Taiwanese media Starettoday, Mark shared that he was in Taiwan to conduct live stream sales.
The 55-year-old star, who’s in Taiwan for six days, brought his wife Catherine Ng along on this trip.
Mark confessed that he was really frightened during the quake.
“When I came for the Golden Horse Awards (in 2021), I experienced a magnitude-3.5 minor quake. At that time there were only slight tremors,” he recounted.
“Yesterday, I was actually awakened by my wife’s crying. I didn’t sense anything initially. It was worse as we were on the 17th floor. The lights, toilet door and the water in the bathtub were shaking. The tremors went on for about one and a half minutes,” recalled Mark.
Mark said he started feeling regret for taking Catherine along on this trip. Had his wife stayed in Singapore, she could still look after their three kids if anything bad happened to him, he said.
Mark and Catherine have two daughters, Calista, 15, and Calynn, 10, and a son Marksonn, 12.
The actor went on to explain that as a Singaporean, he wasn’t aware of the SOP during an earthquake. For example, he and Catherine didn’t know they had to keep the doors open or they might end up trapped inside the room.
Mark, however, found a silver lining through the tragedy.
Admitting that it’s been a long time since Catherine cried in his arms, Mark shared that, at that very moment, he felt thankful to have gone through the ordeal with his wife by his side.
According to the actor, after the first wave of tremors, they thought the entire incident was over.
But when they heard the sirens from ambulances, Catherine started to cry again. They also continued feeling the aftershocks, which happened about five to six times.
A lot of things raced though Mark’s mind during this period. He said he thought about his kids and went on to joke that he didn’t need to worry about his mistress as his friends would help look after her.
The quake also made Mark plan to write a will when he returns to Singapore, in case he “suffers from dementia in the future”.
The actor, who said he’s worried his kids would “vie for (his) inheritance next time”, added: “My country used to encourage sea burial, but now they advocate green burial. There’s even a garden for it. But I’d still choose sea burial for myself.”
“But after the quake, I realised we should be willing to spend our money and live in the moment. Once we’re gone, we won’t have the chance to spend the money no matter how much we have,” he reflected.
This story was originally published in 8days.
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