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In the line of duty: notes of quake experience

By Chen Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-12 10:49

We all suffered from concussions, especially Wang Cheng, the photographer sitting beside me who would ask - and forget - my name every ten minutes.

Ju, whose chin and right arm had been smashed, kept looking at his wide-open mouth with a side mirror from the bus that we had detached for him, and asking around, almost weeping, for help in setting his arm.

Through the rain and darkness, in the distance, we saw the headlights of a car stranded in the valley ahead. It gave us a remote sense of belonging. But after a landslide in the middle of the night, we did not see the light again.

It was definitely a night to remember.

The next day, we relocated to the banks of the river and, on the way, met locals trying to get into Wenchuan and others walking away from it.

It was obvious that waiting for help was not an option. We were in an isolated spot and the immediate rescue effort would be concentrated in residential areas.

We rested on flatland next to the river that night and prepared for the coming day.

I had always wanted to go camping and bizarrely had written in a blog at around midnight on May 11 that Wolong "is such a great place for camping".

And there we were, out there "camping" such a short time later. On the morning of May 14, we began to walk out. We left behind Wang, Ju, and another seriously injured reporter and our group, headed by Guo, his mother and one-year-old nephew, joined hands as we trekked the steep and muddy mountain path.

The 30 km journey took nearly nine hours. On the way we saw a local man hugging a large rock, crying his heart out. Under it was his wife, killed by a rockslide right before his eyes ten minutes earlier.

But every step ahead, we saw more hope. We saw troops and army boats rushing in, free food stops set up by local villagers, and an official team led by a vice minister of transport, with whose help I made our first satellite phone call - to my mother.

We reached Dujiangyan, the nearest city, in the late afternoon. Doctors sent our group to Chengdu by ambulance.

A neck injury kept me from work for nearly two months, but most others in our group are okay. The three reporters we left behind were rescued days later in Yingxiu. One of them still has a damaged arm; the rest are doing fine.

Today, I am ever more thankful to be alive and well, and be strong enough to retrace this journey, not only to revisit those memorable places - the ruins of the Baihua Bridge, for example, which are now listed as "important quake relics", and the riverbank "camping site", which has since become an army barracks - but more importantly, to pay respects to the ones who saved us, and to thank the local people who so quickly and confidently rebuilt their homeland.

And I went back to mourn the ones who will never have the chance to witness the area's recovery.

At least 20 members of our group of 45 in the minivans behind the one I was in died. Some have not been found to this day.

 

 

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