Temblor, Tremor

Yesterday, at approx. 6.15 pm when I went back to my cubicle to collect my stuff, LP asked if I felt any shaking coz she saw her oranges shook.  I didn't.  But in my mind, I was thinking, it must be one gigantic quake in Indonesia (from previous experience) for the shake to be felt here.  I only learnt of the severity of the event today… My heart goes out to the victims and people involved with the quake yesterday.  May they have speedy relief from their hardships…

 

On the side, today, when I first read the article on the Sumatran quake, I saw the word 'temblor' and assumed that it was meant to be 'tremor' and that it was a typo error.  After a few encounters in the same article, I began to wonder, what if it is a word?  I was quite excited to discover after yahoo-ing the word that indeed it is a word.  

 

It is from:

Spanish, a trembling, earthquake, from temblar, to shake, from Vulgar Latin *tremulāre, from Latin tremulus, shaking

 

And as a noun, it means:

shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane of from volcanic activity
  

Synonyms: earthquake, quake, seism

 

A new word learnt in the face of calamity…