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Brutal tragedy on a Monday in Sichuan
By David Maguire |
May 17, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THERE was an evocative contrast between the huge wreaths carried by soldiers in Yingxiu Town, the epicenter of last year's devastating Sichuan earthquake, and the mass of concrete ruins behind them as the nation this week honored the 90,000 dead or missing victims of the disaster.
The blushes of color in the flowers and the stern, youthful faces of their military bearers spoke of renewal, respect and tribute but the mangled wreckage backdrop evoked the ghosts of pain, suffering and death unleashed at 2:28 that May 12 Monday afternoon in China.
This week fittingly has been one of mourning, reaffirmation of government commitment to rebuilding, retellings of how the disparate communities of a stunned nation pitched in to help, and personal and public recollections of how people were affected.
I remember that it was around 3 o'clock in the afternoon on that warm, hazy day when, as I was looking over an artist's shoulder to her work on a computer, that a colleague rushed to me and shouted, "the building is shaking ... can't you feel it ? the building's swaying ? we have to get out!"
We were on the 37th floor of the 46-story Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Tower on Weihai Road, and I was so intent on reading the screen that, no, I hadn't felt it. But when I recalibrated my senses, the building was definitely swaying. It produced a nauseous feeling which kept up as I was pushed toward the lift well, caught up in an exodus.
With the lift area crowded and people massing, pushing buttons to get one to stop at the floor, those intent on fleeing quickly to the open air chose the fire escape. But as we stepped into the stairwell, it was already hosting a stream of foot traffic from the floors above.
There are 25 to 30 steps down the stairs between each floor and there was a sense of urgency in the trek downstairs. But the rate of descent was hampered by the number of additional workers coming into the stream from each new floor and not everyone moved at the same pace - ladies hurrying in high heels were struggling.
The swaying continued but eased in the time it took to get to the bottom floor. My abiding thoughts in the exit process were where would be the best chance of survival - the elevator or the stairs - in an earthquake?
Workers streamed out onto Weihai Road and moved across the street, milling around the nearby park, watching the building we had just exited. In the absence of anything dramatic and getting an all clear from inside, staff trickled back to offices after 4pm. Reports of tremors around the city filtered in, with building evacuations being more than common.
What was not normal, however, was the situation in Sichuan Province from where the epicenter of the quake had sent tremors to Shanghai and Beijing.
As we now know, there were more than 90,000 victims on that day and in the weeks following, with 5 million people made homeless. The severity of the quake split structures asunder, ripping apart buildings as if they were made of matchsticks, tearing up highways and roads and mangling utility infrastructure.
Unlike in Shanghai, the victims had no chance to leave their buildings in an orderly fashion and wait for the outcome. They didn't know what hit them and had no chance to wonder "what if" because the "what" had already killed or buried them.
It was impossible to be detached from the sheer brutality of nature's wrath in the quake zone no matter how far away you were. People in the news gathering business handle disaster, death, murder and mayhem everyday, and many develop a second protective skin through their continual exposure to the dark side.
But not with this one. Its magnitude was too great. Its death toll unimaginable. Its crushing of community relentless, soulless. The China family was devastated. Spontaneous crying was common, unabashed and regular. There were many extraordinary and tragic stories of survival and bravery, of death and dignity, and of superhuman rescue and recovery.
But what struck a poignant chord with my Australian family was the mother who was found dead, huddled in a protective cocoon over her living three-to-four-month old baby, a text message on her mobile phone saying, "my dear baby, if you survive, remember I love you." And the story of the lactating policewoman who suckled five orphans all in a day's work in the wasteland of tragedy. They wept together in Australia for China.
After a year, the scars of the tragedy are still raw. Entire multi-generations of families were buried, evidence of grandparents, mothers, fathers, sole offspring and their life chattels erased. This is a loss of immense human proportion that no new buildings can ever replace, much as they allow a chance for renewal.
Ninety-thousand victims in one natural disaster is too many for any nationality, any community, to get closure on in a lifetime. But a nation of 1.3 billion people standing at silence for two minutes last year in respect for the dead helped start the closure.
And the overwhelming, selfless contribution of support from ordinary people's pockets and corporation wallets was a tangible measure of the depth of universal pain that people felt and just wanted to go away.
There are signature private and public events that resonate in our lives through impact or significance. People talk of what they were doing, where they were, at the time they heard of the death of JFK, or Elvis, when man walked on the moon, when the 21st century dawned.
These signposts of happiness or sadness are built into a life and are never forgotten. The earthquake of May 12, 2008, will be so remembered for the awful consequences it wrought on humanity, Sichuan Province and the Chinese nation. Lest we forget.
The blushes of color in the flowers and the stern, youthful faces of their military bearers spoke of renewal, respect and tribute but the mangled wreckage backdrop evoked the ghosts of pain, suffering and death unleashed at 2:28 that May 12 Monday afternoon in China.
This week fittingly has been one of mourning, reaffirmation of government commitment to rebuilding, retellings of how the disparate communities of a stunned nation pitched in to help, and personal and public recollections of how people were affected.
I remember that it was around 3 o'clock in the afternoon on that warm, hazy day when, as I was looking over an artist's shoulder to her work on a computer, that a colleague rushed to me and shouted, "the building is shaking ... can't you feel it ? the building's swaying ? we have to get out!"
We were on the 37th floor of the 46-story Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Tower on Weihai Road, and I was so intent on reading the screen that, no, I hadn't felt it. But when I recalibrated my senses, the building was definitely swaying. It produced a nauseous feeling which kept up as I was pushed toward the lift well, caught up in an exodus.
With the lift area crowded and people massing, pushing buttons to get one to stop at the floor, those intent on fleeing quickly to the open air chose the fire escape. But as we stepped into the stairwell, it was already hosting a stream of foot traffic from the floors above.
There are 25 to 30 steps down the stairs between each floor and there was a sense of urgency in the trek downstairs. But the rate of descent was hampered by the number of additional workers coming into the stream from each new floor and not everyone moved at the same pace - ladies hurrying in high heels were struggling.
The swaying continued but eased in the time it took to get to the bottom floor. My abiding thoughts in the exit process were where would be the best chance of survival - the elevator or the stairs - in an earthquake?
Workers streamed out onto Weihai Road and moved across the street, milling around the nearby park, watching the building we had just exited. In the absence of anything dramatic and getting an all clear from inside, staff trickled back to offices after 4pm. Reports of tremors around the city filtered in, with building evacuations being more than common.
What was not normal, however, was the situation in Sichuan Province from where the epicenter of the quake had sent tremors to Shanghai and Beijing.
As we now know, there were more than 90,000 victims on that day and in the weeks following, with 5 million people made homeless. The severity of the quake split structures asunder, ripping apart buildings as if they were made of matchsticks, tearing up highways and roads and mangling utility infrastructure.
Unlike in Shanghai, the victims had no chance to leave their buildings in an orderly fashion and wait for the outcome. They didn't know what hit them and had no chance to wonder "what if" because the "what" had already killed or buried them.
It was impossible to be detached from the sheer brutality of nature's wrath in the quake zone no matter how far away you were. People in the news gathering business handle disaster, death, murder and mayhem everyday, and many develop a second protective skin through their continual exposure to the dark side.
But not with this one. Its magnitude was too great. Its death toll unimaginable. Its crushing of community relentless, soulless. The China family was devastated. Spontaneous crying was common, unabashed and regular. There were many extraordinary and tragic stories of survival and bravery, of death and dignity, and of superhuman rescue and recovery.
But what struck a poignant chord with my Australian family was the mother who was found dead, huddled in a protective cocoon over her living three-to-four-month old baby, a text message on her mobile phone saying, "my dear baby, if you survive, remember I love you." And the story of the lactating policewoman who suckled five orphans all in a day's work in the wasteland of tragedy. They wept together in Australia for China.
After a year, the scars of the tragedy are still raw. Entire multi-generations of families were buried, evidence of grandparents, mothers, fathers, sole offspring and their life chattels erased. This is a loss of immense human proportion that no new buildings can ever replace, much as they allow a chance for renewal.
Ninety-thousand victims in one natural disaster is too many for any nationality, any community, to get closure on in a lifetime. But a nation of 1.3 billion people standing at silence for two minutes last year in respect for the dead helped start the closure.
And the overwhelming, selfless contribution of support from ordinary people's pockets and corporation wallets was a tangible measure of the depth of universal pain that people felt and just wanted to go away.
There are signature private and public events that resonate in our lives through impact or significance. People talk of what they were doing, where they were, at the time they heard of the death of JFK, or Elvis, when man walked on the moon, when the 21st century dawned.
These signposts of happiness or sadness are built into a life and are never forgotten. The earthquake of May 12, 2008, will be so remembered for the awful consequences it wrought on humanity, Sichuan Province and the Chinese nation. Lest we forget.
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