The Wenchuan Earthquake Memoirs

It was like the end of the world

“Everything was shaking, and the sky was dark gray. I felt totally terrified, and I didn’t know what to do,” Zichun said, “Suddenly, the door burst open and someone rushed in shouting, ‘There is an earthquake!’ ”

On May 12th, 2008, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake occurred in southwest China. The epicenter was in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province. It was the deadliest earthquake in China since the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake. Zichun Xie is someone who experienced that disaster first-hand. As a nine-year-old girl, she faced this ruthless and cruel earthquake alone, and it was extremely difficult for her to find a safe place. On March 8th, 2019, over 10 years later in New York City, I interviewed her as she revisited her memories of this disaster.

Figure 1 Map showing the distribution of felt ground motions associated with the Wenchuan Earthquake.

The Start of a Nightmare

“I remember that I just woke up and was sitting on my bed when the earthquake happened,” said Zichun. She was in fourth grade and lived on her school’s campus at that time. Her elementary school was in Shifang City and her home was in Mianzhu City; both are near Wenchuan County.

She said, “The earthquake happened at 2:28pm. I felt there was a strong wind blowing outside. It blew away many clothes hanging on the roof. I also felt and heard something was falling on the ground.” She told me how their dorm keeper rushed in and shouted to Zichun and her roommates that there was an earthquake, and everybody must get out immediately. Without time to think, she and her roommates started to run.

Zichun was living on a higher floor, but her shoes were on the first floor. She told me that there was a rule of the dorm: to keep bedrooms clean and tidy, all the students must change their shoes to slippers on the first floor before they go to their rooms. Zichun said, “At that time, I had no idea what an earthquake is and I didn’t know how dangerous and powerful it is. I stopped on the first floor and put on my shoes as usual before I ran out of the building.” When she had enough time to think about what had happened, and to recall the expression and the tone of the dorm keeper, she realized the earthquake was an unusual disaster. She said, “Then, I knew it was an emergency.”

Moved to a Shelter

All the students and teachers gathered on the school playground after the earthquake, and luckily, nobody in her school was hurt. The school buildings were not crushed or damaged in that earthquake. Later, the president of her school allowed students who lived in Shifang City to go back home. Even though those buildings were not damaged, there might be aftershocks, so it was not safe to live in the dorms anymore. The school offered accommodation to the students who lived far from the city while they tried contacting their parents. Zichun was one of them, and she lived in a temporary tent on the school playground for nearly three days. Even though her school provided food for people every day, she missed her parents. She said, “I remember that it kept raining after the earthquake. It was dark outside, and I heard that many people died and lost their homes.”

Figure 2 In this May 17, 2008 file photo, a rescuer pulls out a body from the rubble of a collapsed building, five days after the quake in Yinghua town of southwest China's Sichuan province. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty/FILE)
Temporarily Lost Contact

Due to the poor network signal, Zichun only got in touch with her mother once despite their dialing each other many times. Because Zichun’s mother and Zichun lived in different cities, and a lot of roads were damaged by the earthquake, they couldn’t reunite temporarily. Even worse, Zichun’s mother couldn’t find a car to bring her daughter back home. Meanwhile, Zichun worried about her father’s safety. Her father worked in a phosphate mine factory on a mountain. It was very dangerous for people to work on a mountain when an earthquake happens because landslides are capable of covering and destroying everything in a few seconds. She could do anything but wait. Zichun said she was anxious but not afraid.

A Wandering Journey

Considering it was not safe to let a little girl live in a small tent on the playground, Zichun’s teacher decided to bring Zichun to her own home, and handed her back when Zichun’s mother arrived in Shifang City. Zichun’s mother thanked her teacher and told Zichun that her father was safe. Her mother also mentioned that the biggest bookshelf fell down in their home, so it was not safe to stay at home. After they returned to Mianzhu City, Zichun’s family moved to a woven bag factory in a small town. When they arrived, she found many people, including her father’s coworkers living there. Her family lived there for nearly three months.

After the earthquake, disease became a major concern. One day, Zichun’s parents heard that some people were getting sick near the factory. They were not sure whether the rumor was true or not. Because the sanitary conditions of the factory were bad, her parents asked one of their friends to bring her to a safer place, Suining City, which was not affected too much by the earthquake. Zichun’s family was separated again for nearly two months. Finally, Zichun was sent back to her parents when living conditions had improved.

Effects and Rebirth

According to the official statistics, more than 69,197 people died, 374,176 people injured, and 18,222 people missing in the Wenchuan Earthquake. The disaster affected at least 45 million people, including those who escaped from their homes. (Li 29)

Affected by the earthquake, Zichun was forced to move to several different places. When she came back to school and met her friends and teachers again, she felt so sad about what she heard: one of her classmate’s mothers passed away in the earthquake. Some of her teachers’ relatives lost their lives. “It was terrible,” she said in a low voice.

Furthermore, the Chinese college entrance examination (usually beginning on June 7th) was postponed nearly one month to July for the students who were affected by the earthquake in Sichuan and Gansu Province. Thankfully, they had more time to prepare for the exam and to adjust themselves. The statistics show that a total of 119,928 affected high school students took this exam from July 3rd to 5th in 2008. (Dai 1)

Despite the fact that the Wenchuan Earthquake hurt thousands of people’s hearts and took away precious lives, the citizens did not give up but gathered together and built a new Sichuan.

Figure 3 People gather for a candle light vigil for Sichuan Earthquake victims Tuesday May 12, 2009 in Shanghai, China. Survivors of last year's devastating earthquake in China's Sichuan province trekked into the ruined town of Beichuan Tuesday for the first anniversary commemorations of the tragedy that left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing and 5 million homeless. (AP Photo)

Epilogue

At the end of the interview, I asked Zichun how she felt about the reconstructed cities in Sichuan Province. She said, “It has been 10 years since the earthquake happened. The cities were constructed much better than before, and now it is hard for me to find any trace of the earthquake. Every year, people honor the victims of the earthquake on the May 12th Memorial Day. What’s more, people know the preciousness of life and have more confidence about the future.”