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July 26, 2011

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'Everything has been taken from me'

There were no miracles here.

Walking into a small room still holding out hope, relatives were leaving in tears.

"I'm a dead person now, everything has been taken away from me," said Yang Feng, trying to pull himself together in the Wenzhou funeral parlor yesterday.

Yang lost four family members, including his wife and mother-in-law, in Saturday bullet train crash.

His wife was seven months pregnant and the couple had only been married for just over a year.

Yang found it hard to control himself at the funeral parlor, with about 200 relatives and friends around.

"That's five lives, five," he cried out. He had just identified his beloved wife from pictures yesterday morning.

Soon his sadness and sobbing turned to anger.

"How can the rail officials not come and extend their sorrow? Have they no conscience?

"I even had to find this place myself," said Yang, who had been looking for his wife and other relatives from the moment he had arrived at the crash site.

"It's not about money," said Yang. "Money can not get my wife back."
Nearby a mother from southern Fujian Province fainted. She had just found out that her daughter had died in the crash.

Wenzhou government officials said about 10 bodies had yet to be identified.

For Yang, a Zhejiang native, time stopped at 8:11pm on Saturday night when he received the last text message from his wife, Chen Bi.

Chen told Yang the train "had stopped for a while."

Yang and his younger brother rushed to the scene about 3pm the next day, climbing to the elevated track and the severely damaged carriage in which they believed their beloved ones were trapped.

With no way to get inside, the two peered into the windows, trying to find any traces of life.

Yang became desperate when rescue workers later said they were unable to cut and remove the damaged coach.

Staying almost a day at the scene, the brothers watched as Xiang Weiyi, a 2-year-old girl, was rescued some 20 hours after the accident. Xiang was believed to have been in the same coach as Yang's wife and other family members.

"I don't say that the grown ups would have survived," said Yang's brother. "If the rescue had hurried up and cut the coach sooner the baby in my sister-in-law's belly might still have had a chance."

Hearing his brother speak, Yang lost his temper.

"Get me some mourning clothes right now," Yang almost shouted into his cell phone. The lobby fell silent.

 

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