First-hand Account from Chengdu
Editor’s Note: Tony (Yixing) Zeng, a Canadian student, has graciously allowed us to reprint his email below, originally sent to a friend from an internet cafe in Chengdu just after the first earthquake. Major foreign media have covered this story upside and down, with the American National Public Radio’s Robert Siegel and Melissa Block — who by sheer happenstance had been posted to Chengdu at the time of the quake — providing some of the most extraordinary coverage. I reprint Tony’s email to give readers a first-hand account in English that vividly conveys the sense of being there:
Thanks wholeheartedly for your support which mean a lot to us here. I am quite encouraged and strengtherned to get support from my own university York. I have been in Chengdu for almost 3 days now and I have some updates for you. Yes [name of person] you can give my contact to other people if they need more information about what’s going on here. Sorry that I could not get back to you sooner due to the big mess here. There are several things I want to mention:
First, it’s not only one earthquake here but May 12th one was the deadliest. The biggest one happened on May 12th which amounted 7.8 was for sure the most devastating one. Chinese experts are saying that earthquake equals 400 Hiroshima nuclear bombs going off simultaneously. It hit many cities, over a hundred townships and hundreds of villages at the same time in the northwest of Chengdu. So far 4.8 million people were homeless, about 30,000 were confirmed dead, 120,000 were hospitalized and over 200,000 were injured. Chengdu now is full of refugees.
Government set up camps everywhere: parks, stadiums and field and track centres. Hospitals are full of injured and dying victims and the government has been airlifting injured victims to other provinces day and night. My family and friends in Chengdu escaped the disaster alive. But many of them still suffer from severe psychological shocks. My dad was sitting in his office on his hospital 6th floor when it happened. He was bumped out of his chair and thrown from one side of the office to another then back and forth for about 6-7 minutes. My Mum managed to run downstairs from her 2nd floor lab but when she looked back at her hospital: the whole building was swaying from left to right and then back until the earthquake is over and a big crack was created in front of her eyes which convinced her the building was about to crunble; one of my friends was working on the 17th floor and she rushed downstairs when it happened. Because the building was shaking so violently that she was convinced she was going to die. She severely twisted her ankle from jumping but she did not even realize the pain. So far, she has not even slept for any night because of the extreme fear. (Her condo wall and overhead bean also had cracks.)
In addition, there were several more earthquakes everyday. Last night, Jiangyou county had a 6.2 earthquake which managed to wake the entire city up 1:30am in the morning. My family rushed down from the building and had to sleep in a big van. But there was thumder storm last night.
A lot of people were sleeping outside despite the thumderstorm. Tents were everywhere during night in Chengdu and 2 million cars in Chengdu have been used daily as beds by local residents here. We just hope the so called “after shocks” can be over soon. I don’t know how long people here can sustain a prolonged scary ‘war’ like this. It’s exhausting…
Second, people here are grateful to government’s immediate and effective rescue activities. The major earthquake happened at 2:28pm and Premier Wen Jiaobao arrived in Chengdu from Beijing at 6pm to direct the rescue mission. After hearing the briefing, he asked PLA Central Commission to send over 100 thousand (PLA troops and PLA Armed Police) soilders from around the country to carry out rescue mission in Sichuan.
Thousands more policemen, fire fighters, doctors and nurses have arrived in Sichuan from all provinces also. In Chengdu we have heard the roaring sounds of airplanes and helicopters day and night. Since the major railway connection to Baoji city (Shan’xi province) was severely damaged, airoplane seem to be the major way to transport personnel and supplies between Sichuan and the outside world. After Premier Wen was injured and exhausted in Sichuan, President Hu came here to replace him. Despite continuous mountain slides and more earthquakes, President Hu managed to reach the epicenter yesterday once one road to Wenchuan was re-opened momentarily (it was broken again shortly by mountain slides).
Acutally, when President was encouraging a group of military people in a village in Wenchuan county, another earthquake happened right in front millions of viewers’ eyes.
Every province in China has been fully moblized to support Sichuan. After the earthquake, I was in Hangzhou and Shenzhen before coming back to Chengdu.
In both cities, I saw lines of people eager to donate their blood and also I saw lineup of over 100 meters long in both cities for people to donate cash. Every province has sent significant numbers of doctors, policemen, fire fighters and even officials to come to Sichuan to help us. It’s quite moving. I saw countless having tears in their eyes in Hangzhou and Shenzhen when they were talking about the earthquake.
The whole country is now behind Sichuan.
Second, I want to point out people’s spontaneous rescue and support activities. On May 12th, despite of violent aftershocks, over 2000 Chengdu taxis went to Dujiangyan to carry back injured people. These cab drivers kept doing this everyday. Also, many Chengdu residents cooked food and drove to Dujiangyan and other cities to feed the victims. All big SOEs in Chengdu organized their factory rescue teams to disaster zone to help local people. My dad who works for a police hospital in Chengdu hasn’t even gone home after the earthquake happened; my mum who works for a civilian hospital can come home but there’s no weekend for her and her colleagues; my cousin who works for Chengdu police force has worked everyday because the rest of her colleagues were sent to the disaster zone.
My friend who is the head of provincial hospital (our Sichuan training program member from 2005) has worked non-stop and could not even talk to me over the phone.
Many military people haven’t slept for days in the rain and they are just 20 some year old kids. In most areas where heavy machinery is not possible to reach, these kids digged out roads with their bare hands.
Some private companies have given generously as well.
A Changsha based private company stopped their orders for oversea customers and send 20 heavy diggers to Sichuan which could potentially put it out of business for breaching the contract.(Fortunately, the several foreign customers expressed their understanding and supported its decision.) Thousands of families are waiting in line to adopt orphans in Sichuan.
Also, donations from individuals around the world are coming to our direction like water to a desert. Over 6 billion RMB were confirmed donated and more is on the way. We really appreciate all these help. We feel that the whole humanity is behind us.
Third, now probably the rescue part of the mission is coming to an end though we still look for miracles.
Next thing on our agenda is even more daunting: we will need to re-build homes, factories, roads, hospitals, schools etc for about 5 million people!
This will be a huge challenge for anyone. This may take over a decade to finish. Meanwhile, we will need to find temp homes and economic assistance to these victims who lost everything in the disaster. That’s why we will have to ask for more help from around the world because it’s necessary.
I know our Canadians are helping us generously both from the society and the government. We are quite grateful to you. In time of this ultimate crisis, we are fortunate to have Canadians as our friends. I believe just like me, all Sichuan people won’t forget your generosity and will offer the same thing to Canada if anything were to happen there(God forbids).
I am writing to you from Chengdu, a “war zone” in western Sichuan.
[Editor's Note: Thanks also to Prof. Bernie Frolic of York University for helping me to connect with Tony Zeng.]
Read more: Asiabizblog – Business and Law for China and Asia
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