earthquake on the peninsula

My cell phone started screaming this evening because it was broadcasting an especially urgent emergency warning. At 7:08 p.m., I got a message about a 4.1 earthquake in North Jeolla Province, which is straight down the west side of South Korea, due south of Seoul a few hundred kilometers, but not quite at the southwest corner of the country (the southwest corner is South Jeolla). The message said to watch for falling objects, to escape outside, and to beware of aftershocks. 4.1 doesn't sound that bad; I have to wonder what sort of damage resulted from the quake. I didn't feel anything up here in Seoul.

I was at the office, finishing up my translation work for the family friend (and enjoying leftovers from Friday's luncheon). I've sent off a PDF copy of the translation as well as a link to the Google Docs version, and I've told D that if she has any questions, she has but to ask. You'll recall that D emailed me totally out of the blue after years of not corresponding with me, and her only reason for contacting me was because she wanted something. There was no offer of pay; she probably has little clue how labor-intensive translation work can be. In the US market, translation work pays anywhere from 10 to 30 cents per word on average (or so says Google). The word count for the English rendering is 4474. If I were to split the difference and ask for 20 cents per word, then 4474 times 20 cents would be $894.80—a decent chunk of change. I'm pretty sure, though, that D knew I wouldn't ask her for money, and given how long this translation took, the effort involved, etc., I won't be doing this for her again. To misquote the proverb: Use me once, shame on you. Use me twice...

UPDATE: the Richter estimate was later revised down to 3.5.