The Earthquake
May 12, 2008, Sichuan. It was a common Monday just like any other day. In an elementary school, teacher Wu was conducting a class. In a resident apartment, Mr. Wang and his wife were watching a DVD. He just returned from work in another province. The couple were enjoying the precious moment of being together. In streets, cab drivers were complaining about the traffic. Somewhere in the city, a young mom was looking at her newborn baby. The baby was only 4 months old, as tender as dew in the morning.
They didn’t know their lives would be forever changed, and that many of them would never see the blue sky again.
At 2:28 p.m., a magnitude 8 earthquake struck Wenchuan county of Sichuan …
Tens of thousands perished in the catastrophe. I have seen heart-wrenching pictures from Sichuan. I saw so many that I decided I could not see any more. The sorrow had somehow sunk in, and has become not only a part of my news reading, but a part of my life. Every day I woke up, I would feel that day as different from yesterday. And there are some other pictures haunting my mind, the pictures of the moment before the earthquake, of the ordinary folks we see every day. The disaster changed their lives, and it changed me too. It made me believe in people. I didn’t know these people were heroes inside. They are the people I can count on, they will come to save me when I am in danger, even at the risk of their own lives, and I would do the same for them.
When the earthquake struck, teacher Wu carried his students from the classroom to the ground. But when he realized that a few students had been left behind, he rushed back without hesitation. He sacrificed his life to save his students. Many teachers made the same choice. Rescuers found students under the protection of their teacher’s body. The teachers were Tan Qianqiu, Zhang Miya, Yuan Wenting …
Mr. and Ms. Wang were buried under rubble. In tremendous pain and desperation, the couple supported each other. They whispered about their life and their daughter, about the moment when they first met, and what they would do when they got out alive. The only thing giving them hope to hang on in the endless darkness was love. They were rescued the next day.
The mom of the four-month old was buried with her baby. She shielded him with her own body. When they were discovered by rescuers, she had died while her baby survived. People found a message to the child in the mom’s cell phone. It read, “If you can survive, always remember that I love you.”
Her love, and the love of many who died or survived, will be remembered. On May 19, a week after the earthquake, the whole country of China held a moment of silence. Time seemed frozen. Cars came to a halt. A billion people stood silent for three minutes, while the only sound in the air was sirens. The citizens gathered in the square of Sichuan capital were holding hands. After the mourning, however, they rallied, “Be strong! Go, China, Go!” Witnessing the solidarity, unyielding spirit, and commonly seen altruism, a reporter wrote, “The earth broke open, but rifts between hearts are healed.”
Within two hours after the earthquake, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had arrived in Chengdu from Beijing. During the days and nights of the crisis, he proved to be the best prime minister since Zhou Enlai. More than 100,000 soldiers were mobilized, including parachute troopers who entered the towns in mountain areas that were completely cut off from rescue due to landslides. At the end of a CNN interview with a village’s local authority, the reporter asked the official if his own family was okay. He shook his head, weeping, and then returned to his work. Many local firefighters, police, doctors and nurses who had lost their own family worked around the clock to help others. They didn’t have time to mourn, to rest, or even to think about what had happened. The only thing on their minds was to save lives and fulfill their duties.
Disaster relief is always a duty of the government and sometimes of the army too. But this time, the entire nation joined the effort. According to eyewitnesses, “Within hours, people rushed to rescue. Blood donation lines ran for a hundred yards, and people waited hours to donate blood. Within 24 hours, all major blood banks ran out of storage space. The highway to the earthquake-struck city of Dujiangyan was almost jammed one hour after the quake; not by people fleeing the aftershocks, but by volunteers, led by over a thousand taxi drivers, who came from Chengdu to rescue.” In an online discussion, when asked by anxious people whether they needed more hands, a volunteer actually politely refused, “We have enough people. Please do not come if you are not a trained rescuer, because volunteers, too, will consume water, which is in shortage now.”
China was not alone in the disaster relief efforts after the quake.The seismic waves was literally felt as far as Thailand and Russia. People across the globe provided great help to China, including monetary donation and other forms of aid. Taiwan, a longtime political rival of China, promised a heartwarmingly huge donation of $65,000,000. South Korea, Russia and other countries sent in rescue teams. Australia, Finland, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and many other countries sent significant donations for disaster relief. Many of them are not rich countries, and many are far away from Asia, but they all extended helping hands. The U.S., too, offered a $500,000 donation.
The month was a very difficult and painful time for every Chinese. We saw flattened cities, ruined homes, heartbreaking sacrifices, and lost lives. The earthquake was a trauma for the nation. When Premier Wen visited surviving students, he wrote a Chinese classic teaching on the chalkboard, “Distress rejuvenates a nation.” That is the spirit needed to rebuild our homes.