Since the Sichuan earthquake on May 12, the Chinese government has enacted extensive national emergency relief work. Today Sichuan residents are united together in the struggle to reassemble their lives.
On May 13, unceasing rain fell on areas struck by the earthquake. Along Sichuan roadways in need of emergency repairs, ranging from Dujiangyan City all the way to the epicenter in Wenchuan County, officers and men were struggling to restore and rebuild roads. Access to the roadways has been achieved gradually.
Inclement weather increases rescue work difficulties
It was still raining heavily and water was being flung about as the earthquake aftershocks continued. On May 13, Dujiangyan was blocked with vehicles, with people and rubble piled up in mounds.
Upon entering urban districts, a People's Daily reporter was blocked by a street full of panicking people. One stray passer-by pointed down the chaotic street, explaining where the People's Liberation Army was carrying out rescue work.
Beside two multi-storied buildings with huge cracks in their structures that luckily still stood erect, small mountains of reinforced concrete ruins were piled over 10 meters high. An armed police officer asserted that living people were still trapped underneath. A 24-year-old lady had been walking by when the earthquake struck; she was buried alive and couldn’t move because of the weight of the rubble. Rescue personnel and the reporter encouraged her to maintain hope and wait to be excavated. The woman made a positive response but couldn't help sobbing aloud.
According to officers and men working along with local rescue troops, the greatest numbers of collapsed houses are situated in the older neighborhoods in Dujiangyan. In a densely packed alleyway at least 30 officers and men, standing on a pile of over-10-meter-high ruins, were moving broken steel planks one by one with the help of cranes. The commander said the location had formerly been an Internet bar. More than 20 people were surfing the Internet when the earthquake happened. While he was speaking rescue people frantically stooped down and pulled out a man, naked from the waist up, and shouted loudly, "This one is still alive."
Within five minutes this survivor had been dug out of the rubble and placed into an ambulance.
On the morning of May 13, the reporter walked all the way into Beichuan County, now a desolate wasteland. No means of communication currently exist within a 29-kilometer radius of Beichuan County. Roads outside the county have sunk several meters and it is still impossible for vehicles to travel along them.
Thousands of people, including the People's Liberation Army, the Armed Police, firemen and militia have been conducting search and rescue work since the evening of May 12. Drizzling rain the next day increased their already extremely great difficulties. Roads became so muddy that twelve or thirteen soldiers were needed when carrying a seriously injured person away from a pile of rubble. According to officers and men at the scene, they have rescued over 100 seriously injured people while those slightly injured were able to dig themselves out of the debris.
Oriental Steam Turbine Factory with a sudden hit
On May 13, the reporter visited the Oriental Steam Turbine Factory (OSTF). As a national industrial base of technology and equipment, OSTF was the corporation with the largest individual losses during the earthquake disaster.
Located in Mianzhu, the factory is only a mountain away from Wenchuan County. More than 7,000 workers and over 5,000 retired people had been living at this location. According to Deputy General Manager Lin Guangping the most heavily damaged areas during the earthquake were the blade and welding plants, the Oriental Steam Elementary and Middle School, and household buildings. Statistics revealed that over 100 students in these schools were either dead or missing.
"Fixed assets have been totally destroyed. So far the damage is estimated at more than 7 billion," Lin Guangping said, choked with sobs.
After the earthquake, the OSTF immediately set up relief headquarters and a volunteer self-rescue team. Over 4,000 men quickly organized and began 24-hour continuous rescue procedures.
Several simple, temporary medical clinics have been built with plastic sheeting on the left side of the OSTF gate. Medical staff members were busy working inside.
According to Jia Xiulan, director of the Nursing Department inside the OSTF Hospital, the hospital was celebrating Nurses’ Day on the afternoon of May 12 when suddenly the unforeseen earthquake turned the festival into an emergency working day. By 5 PM on May 13 this hospital had already admitted, treated and saved over 200 people.
(Source: People's Daily, translated by Wang Wei for China.org.cn, May 14, 2008)