by multipletext.com

Earthquake Diary (2)
The Rescue Efforts

9 February 2009

This is the most amazing eyewitness account of a huge event. Through his camera lens, the author known as 新洋, recorded and reported, and is still recording and reporting to this very day, the horrific catastrophe and incredible human response. The following are the images edited from some of his photos and English translation of the related notes. The original photos and Chinese text can be viewed in full at

www.forum.xinhuanet.com/detail.jsp?id=54276745&pg=1

1, Eyewitness Report through the Lens

15 May 2008 (the 3rd day of the 5.12 earthquake):

Along the road, I see the quake victims holding up cardboard signs with heart wrenching messages such as: "No water, no food."

A peasant shows me an empty basket. "The rice has been buried under wreckage; without power, the rice crop cannot to be thrashed; we lost all the money and can't buy food."

When the chief of the electricity authority in Chengdu learned the situation, he immediately leads a team to the affected areas offering power solutions.

The military force marches into the disaster areas to carry out large scale rescue operations.

A mother waits for her son's body to be dug out from a collapsed school building.

A father waits for his son's to be dug our from a collapsed school building. He's already lost his parents, his wife while his younger son stays at a relief centre.

"I saw him lying there with a floor slab on his body, and I've got him covered with a rain coat yesterday," he told me.

This is the notorious Beichuan School with corrupted building projects. Nearby 2,000 students and teachers were killed instantly or have been buried alive under building debris. Few show a sign of life when being pulled out of the rubble.

Occasionally a miracle would occur. This boy is still able to verbally communicate with the rescuers and doctors, given he has been without food and with many thing covered on his body, including his diseased teachers and classmates, and for good 74 hours.

16 May 2008 (the 4th day of the 5.12 earthquake:

Some soldiers have collapsed after day and night on the grim task of searching the survivors and recovering the deseased.

This is an emergency centre of the electricity bureau setting up for the quake hit areas. When a man from Beijing said to a man from Xuzhou that I came to take the next shift and you could go home for a rest, the Xuzhou man replied: "No, without a formal order, I can not leave my post."

These are where the electricians take their much needed rest. They are ordered to restore power supply for the quake victims at whatever the cost.

3, The Tentative Recovery
4, The Support
5, The Chinese Army
6, The Reflection
7, The Hope
8, The United Efforts

Prev: Earthquake Diary (1)
Next: Tibetan Prison Langzisha

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