Eye on China

(Written for the May issue of China Grooves)

As the sun rose on Wednesday April 14 the people in China started their day as if any other day, but tragically it was a day that would not end as simply as it began. An earthquake, rating a brutal 7.1 on the rector scale, tore its way through China’s largest areal province, Qinghai. Tales of death and destruction quickly spread throughout the nation and across the world. In the second major earthquake in as many years China’s rescue services were mobilized within hours and more than 10,000 uniformed troops had deployed. Their primary objective in the delicate hours that followed was to use every measure to locate and liberate quake survivors.

Even as workers plowed through rubble and debris, many using their bare hands, the death toll climbed higher, reaching over 2000 lives lost. Since that first day an upwards of 15,000 workers were on scene and more than 17,000 victims had been pulled from the wreckage. By the following Monday attention was turned from rescue to restore. In a speech designed to console and uplift, President Hu Jintao vowed to rebuild and reconstruct the devastated area; making the need to rebuild schools a primary focus. In a freshly constructed tent classroom for orphaned primary and middle school students President Hu stood at a chalk board and wrote his defining message “There will be new schools, there will be new homes!”

The lives of those who survived have been changed forever, and they must now begin the painstaking process of moving forward. But as these villagers look toward what their lives will be like in the aftermath of destruction, medical workers are grounded in the moment keeping a close eye a potentially fatal situation. The area surrounding the quake has become a breading ground for the pneumonic plague. The plague is passed to humans from marmots, a type of ground squirrel common in the area. Once the infection reaches humans it can become devastatingly viral as it is an airborne disease. With the widespread destruction it would be easy to come in contact with the animal, so rescue workers have been urgently warned and the condition is under the careful watch by the assembled health professionals.

Even with the supplies, rescue workers and volunteers the regions climate is working against all efforts. With temperatures near or below freezing the victims must battle frostbite as well as fight off potential infections. Millions of yuan has been donated to help relief efforts and the teams of uniformed support as well as civilian volunteers will add the defining touches that keep the devastation from spiraling even further out of control.

While the medical teams and government officials work to help restore health and safety to the region, another type of uniformed support has made its way into the reconnaissance mission. Throngs of Tibetan monks have migrated from the surrounding areas not only to pray and present salvage to those living but to help shoulder the burden that has befallen the area. 1200 monks from a nearby Sichuan school have no income but paid 500 yuan each out of their pockets to volunteer. They are performing traditional burial rites twice a day in order to help the families of the victims find solace in their suffering. In a striking scene the maroon robed monks sat on the remnants of a playground, singing sutra prayers for earthquake victims. Their mournful voices mixed with the sounds of the children reciting their first lessons in their makeshift classrooms are a chorus that echoes the struggle of a region. It is the soundtrack of sadness and initial destruction but the ultimate hope of renaissance and rebirth as this prosperous country once again must mend a bruised and broken community.