Gilbert Goh
12 May marks the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake which struck China last year. I thank the Straits Times for putting up an insightful account of the earthquake in its 11 May edition, “True grit on the road to recovery”. The story brought tears to my eyes as I reflected on the incident which has touched me personally.
I was teaching in Hubei, a province several thousand kilometres away from Beichuan, Sichuan, when the earthquake struck.
I felt a slight tremor but there was nothing that suggested something seriously devastating had happened. I carried on with my class, oblivious to the fact that a huge earthquake has destroyed a beautiful town in beautiful scenic Sichuan. Many lives were also destroyed.
As news flooded in towards evening time, I sensed that the earthquake was major and that many people had perished in the disaster. News stations broadcast the event 24/7 and many Chinese people stayed up all night to watch the live telecast of a disaster that gripped the nation. I remember shedding tears, watching actual events unfolding on television.
It was reality TV at its worse.
I could not bear to watch the raw live telecast of the rescue missions that went on through the night in many parts of the quake-stricken area. It was also my first experience of a major disaster that happened so close to where I was situated. I was most touched by how the Chinese people rallied together and donations poured in by the millions.
When school holidays came in June, I made a personal trip alone to Sichuan to volunteer as an English teacher. Vacancies were however filled up and I decided to journey alone to Dujiangyan city – which saw well over 20,000 people killed by the earthquake. When we reached the town by bus, the devastation was so immense and almost incomprehensible.
I saw ten-storey buildings hanging precariously on one side, left eerily empty by its owners. Huge shopping malls were stripped naked by the force of the earthquake. Roads were also destroyed and cracks on them lined hundreds of kilometres. Debris of school buildings that destroyed thousands of school going children were removed by now. However, you could smell the air of death that hovered around the area.
I tracked around the town aimlessly viewing the destruction by nature – both in awe and sadness. Many people slept by the tents that lined the town. 90 per cent of most houses were certified unsafe for inhabitation. People walked by quietly in the streets – hands in pocket, their minds pre-occupied with the sudden events that erased their once-tranquil lifestyles. I also saw some with legs amputated walking around in crutches. They, however, had smiles on their faces as they were thankful for not being among those who perished in the disaster. It was better to be alive without a leg than totally dead. Life is never the same for many who live there. Each family will know of someone who has either died in the earthquake or is injured. It is a living nightmare for many, to say the least
I could not sleep that night when I returned to Chengdu after visiting the quake site. The scenes of devastation kept playing in my mind and there were times that I trembled in fear and shock. That very night, a mild aftershock came and I rushed out of my hotel room when I felt my bed tremble. I later checked with some residents and they confirmed that indeed there was an aftershock that night.
I wanted to visit Beichuan – the worse hit area of the Sichuan earthquake that killed almost 40,000 people but heard that it was barred for visitation due to the threat of contamination to visitors.
I learned a few precious lessons from the Sichuan earthquake:
1. Never take your loved ones for granted – many parents living in Sichuan sent their children away for school on that fateful day not knowing that would be the last time they would see their loved ones. People had to later dig out lifeless bodies of their children from the debris at the school compound. Some could not even find their children’s bodies. So always treasure each day you have with your loved ones. You never know what will happen to them the next day.
2. Finding fresh new reasons to live on despite adverse setbacks. Many survivors actually wished that they too had been killed in the earthquake - those who had whole families perished in the disaster, leaving them as the only survivors. They have to find fresh new reasons to live on. Those who survived but have been dismembered or incapacitated also need to fight on and find resilience in their difficult situations. So always stay resilient and learn from setbacks to live on purposefully.
3. Live each day as if it is your last. This perhaps is the most important lesson that I have learned here. Many of us live each day as if we have many more days and months to go. The earthquake has taught me that we may never have another day to live. Disaster suddenly strikes and sometimes we have no way of preventing them. Mother nature does not give us ample early warning and when we are caught let us be prepared that we have lived our lives with purpose and meaning.
I will be remembering the 5/12 earthquake with a one minute observance at 2.28pm on 12 May.
Do join me if you can.
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Addendum by Donaldson Tan, Head of TOC International:
There are talks of an alleged cover-up on one particular aspect of the Sichuan Earthquake – the structural stability of the school buildings. Many of the school buildings are supposed to be earthquake-resistant. The official Chinese estimate on student deaths is 5,200 while the figure by citizen groups stands at 9,200. The Chinese Government has been cracking down on online disucssions of structural stability of Sichuan school buildings and has prohibited the grieving parents from staging a public rally in Sichuan.
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We, Singaporeans should count ourselves lucky. Theres no constant wars, no natural devastating disasters, no genocides, no terrorist attacks. We are in safe hands due to our government and our founding fathers. We take such things for granted that we Singaporeans like to complain like in this forum. How many times have we complained that we were hungry despite just having a last meal few hours ago.
I can’t think of a better place to live in the world than Singapore. This is my home and it will always be. I will defend with my life if called upon. Peace is somethings we can never take for granted. The world is so chaotic now so lets work hard for our lives, family and country.
This is so true and we should appreciate what we have right here even though there are certain limtations.
Count your blessings wherever you are.
Life is also short and live the day to its best!
Remember to observe a minute of silence at 2.28pm tomorrow as a mark of respect for those killed in the Sichuan earthquake.
A good leader will lead the people towards a good life. Leader with a selfish thought place their interest above everyone under him. This happened in China and it has been a very sad thing. It is the selfishness that leads to a wealthy country like USA into a series of financial problem and the same greed that put million of people’s living at stake.
In Singapore, what we are having or most of us are experiencing is the lost of real income. Who will help us? Perhaps no one until something real bad had happened. Anyone whose salary is pegged to GDP will think of his/her benefit more than the people. Will they help her/his people? Perhaps half hearted.
Because of selfishness and greed of the leaders, people have to suffer in silence.
Let’s pray for the dead souls.
Thank for the write up..will join in for the one minute observation at 2.28.
I was in Xi An when the earthquake occurred which is at the fringe of the earthquake. However, I remembered news on the devastated area as well as epic center came in rather late 2-3 days and about 1week or later respectively. Communication was cut off from chengdu for about 2 days when I tried to contact my colleagues in Chengdu and intermittent for the following week.
I went to Chengdu about 1 month later and was shocked to see cracked line on condo. and falling wall tiles not everywhere but visible.
Many of my local counterpart volunteer for the aids and accounts of the area was revealed when they came back. These are very young chaps and nationalistic feel was everywhere especially when MNC donated less or celebrities misconduct on the earthquake. China flag was attached to e-mail which at that time I felt uneasy. But I know that fear and mass panic for about 2 months when tremors and rumours was flying around.
Thank for refreshing the memory.
The New York Times report a possible link between a government-owned dam project and the Sichuan Earthquake.
Below are 2 exerpts from the NYT report:
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A Columbia University scientist who studied the quake has said that it may have been triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir less than a mile from a well-known major fault. His conclusions, presented to the American Geophysical Union in December, coincide with a new finding by Chinese geophysicists that the dam caused significant seismic changes before the earthquake.
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Nonetheless, any suggestion that a government project played a role in one of the biggest natural disasters in recent Chinese history is likely to be politically explosive. The issue of government accountability and responsiveness has boiled over in China in the past year. The grieving parents of thousands of schoolchildren killed in the disaster have already made the 7.9-magnitude earthquake a political issue, charging that children died needlessly in unsafe school buildings approved by negligent or corrupt officials.
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Had the same magnitude earthquake and destruction struck SIngapore, there would be no more Singapore, even with all the few hundred billion dollar reserves!
God has been kind to Singapore, both the people and the PAP!
1st Anniversary …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOqu9qZxphg
@ #6, i know a certain thio su mien will say otherwise
singaporeans are rather generous. though we were not affected, most singaporeans donated rather generously. some even went over to help in the rebuilding process.
such an effort is most commendable.
remember, dont ever take your love ones for granted
You catch the official Memorial Ceremony for the Sichuan Earthquake here.
<> A lot of BS in china, govt so corrupt can use public fund to build big shiny magnificent palaces aka 7 Wonders for officials to work at & yet we are giving free $$ to them. The poorer folks there r deaf & mute anyway. Was there even any slight appreciation from their side? They are probably laughing at us: We r rich, big & powerful, ur petty cash is not even nuff for our toilet fee, & dont even think we r related, u Sporean chinese r non-chinese & only PRC r chinese. Whatever so call chinese-cultures practiced here in Spore since ur ancestors’ time are long ago revolutionized by our Mao’s movement. In fact, from history, since the fall of late Ming, the word chinese Han has long since lost meaning in china
Hi vkool10%
Yes, it is true that the Chinese Government is corrupt but the Sichuan Earthquake revealed that there is national solidarity among the People. One year on and the People are still fighting on for the Earthquake victims. I am not sure if the same could be said on Singaporeans – do we really share any national solidarity?
I remember, one year ago, when this disaster came, my fellow NUS students from China were very worried and concerned. Sure, to most of them, their families were not directly affected by the incident, but seeing their people suffering from a distant land inflicts them with a helpless pain.
A truly terrible incident, and it is quite an insightful collection of lessons that you’ve raised from this disaster.