"residents panic"

The "economics of natural disasters" is catching my eye at the moment (although the economics of financial disasters would probably be a more lucrative area to go into these days).

As such I was taken by a recent headline to a very short piece in PlanetArk reporting on a recent earthquake in East Timor.

Quake Hits East Timor, Residents Panic [PlanetArk]

"People panicked and rushed out from their houses," said Caitano Guterres, a resident in Baucau, about 75 km northeast of Dili.

First, did the residents really "panic"? What do people tend to do in earthquakes and what does a panicking resident actually look like. I assume it means that they were running around very fast waving their hands in the air and screaming or does it mean something else.

Given the imminent collapse of the capitalist system as we know it I expect we need to look for the signs of panic everywhere. I suspect wall street would be a good place to spot "panicking residents" assuming that their Manhattan lofts have not been repossessed depriving them even of the word "resident".

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