Just two hours after an earthquake drill in Mexico City, Jonathan Dampney could not have imagined a powerful 7.1 earthquake would hit, collapsing homes and bridges, killing an estimated 149 people.
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The Canberra man was in a meeting at the Australian Embassy when an earthquake drill, similar to a fire drill, was called.
"We were ushered out of the building, the whole area we were staying in had to evacuate," Mr Dampney said.
"There weren't any signs that an actual earthquake was going to happen."
Mr Dampney returned to his hotel after the meeting at about lunchtime when the building started to shake.
"We were just sitting downstairs having lunch in the hotel and then the whole building started to rock back and forwards - enough so that you could feel it was moving," he said.
"People stood up from lunch and everyone started quickly moving to the doors, kind of without any need for other people to tell them or sirens or anything like that to go off.
"Everyone just headed outside, possibly because we had just been through a drill and knew what to do."
The earthquake came on the same day as a 1985 quake that killed thousands and as Mexico recovers from a deadly earthquake and hurricane that struck less than two weeks ago.
He said there was not a great deal of panic, but "people were certainly keen to get out of the building as quickly as possible.
"The locals were a bit more nervous because they've had a recent earthquake and they've had a really bad one as well."
The Mexico quake was the fourth in five years for Mr Dampney, who was at the airport flying home from a work trip in Chile when a 6.1 magnitude quake hit in 2012. He was holidaying in Europe with his wife when their six floor apartment building in Bologna, Italy started to shake.
And in November last year, Mr Dampney took his family along on his work trip to New Zealand when a powerful 7.8 quake hit in Wellington.
"It was actually the worst one I've been in - it went on for a couple of minutes, my little daughter fell out of bed because of the shaking."
Mr Dampney said he was counting his lucky stars but said he wouldn't consider himself an expert when it comes to earthquakes.
"I certainly felt less panicked about things today than I've had previously," he said. "I'm certainly getting some experience, that's for sure, more than you're likely to get in Canberra."
He said he could not begin to understand how Mexicans were feeling but said he was thankful that he had no damage or suffered any injuries.
"The cab I went to the airport with today, the driver took us all the way to the airport. which took about two hours to get out there because of the traffic and it wasn't until he dropped us off at the airport that he told us he had spoken to his parents, but he hadn't been able to talk to his wife or daughter.
"He had been driving for the two hours to the airport and I can't imagine what that would have been like for him - it's terrifying"
