The armed police carry relief materials
in Yingxiu Town, Wenchuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May
28, 2008. (Xinhua Photo) Photo
Gallery>>>
BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese nation was
almost caught off-guard by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan Province
earlier this month. As a result, an estimated 80,000 people perished in just a
few minutes, and another 15 million lost their homes.
For a nation that has enjoyed three decades of
economic boom in peace and stability -- man-made or natural disasters over the
years sound too petty if compared -- the sudden tragedy was just too much for
every one to take.
Still, in the abyss of grief, the country moves into
reconstruction of the quake-hit regions. It is also high time for the nation to
ponder why the loss could be so huge and what should be done to prepare for the
possibility of another of this kind awaiting us in future?
In fact, natural disasters of this size have never
been foreign for each generation of Chinese, whose national terrestrial
territory covers 9.6 million square kilometers, let alone the fact that much of
its land sits on a quake-prone belt.
Maybe, because the people have been longing for
stability so much and too cautious against arousing disturbance after many years
of chaos and disorder, there had been few such warnings before the quake that
the worst of Mother Nature could occur -- people were just inadequately
prepared.
The nation should start from now to realize that its
future should not be built merely on GDP figures, but on its readiness toward
off the worst odds of all natural and human factors.
Economists and other scholars have suggested disaster
prevention and relief be integrated into the national economic and social
development plan, and added into troop training and school courses so as to
minimize the damage once disaster occurs.
The quake also helped enhance people's awareness of
the risks of natural disasters, making officials and builders realize that
projects should never be done cursorily; otherwise they will face legal
responsibility even if they luckily escaped collapsed buildings they erected.
The central leadership has noticed the quality of
structures falling in the quake, especially vulnerable school buildings that
killed hundreds and thousands of children who were having classes at the time of
the quake.
He Guoqiang, China's top anti-graft official and
member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Chinese
Communist Party Central Committee, urged for an "upgraded quake-resistance
standard" and "quality first" in rebuilding quake-damaged schools when he
visited the victims.
Faced with strong protests from parents and public
queries, the Education Ministry and local governments have promised to evaluate
the construction quality of collapsed school buildings and "severely punish
those responsible if problems were found."
LESSONS
LEARNED
With tens of thousands of lives lost, the quake
proved too dear a cost for the Chinese people. But if there is anything the
Chinese could gain from it, it's the bountiful lessons both the government and
the people have learned and the experiences they have had.
Fourteen minutes after the quake struck, the military
sent out the first rescue team; within two hours Premier Wen Jiabao was on a
plane to the epicenter. The relief headquarter was set up in the same evening in
Dujiangyan, one of the worst-hit cities in Sichuan.
Meanwhile, Chinese media rolled out around-the-clock
and nearly-live coverage of the disaster and the rescue work; the whole of
society was mobilized.
Chen Guangbiao, a private business board chairman
from the eastern Jiangsu Province, heading a team of 120 people and 60
excavators, rushed to the quake areas after an arduous 48-hour journey to help
with the rescue work, side by side with the military.
Military helicopters, field hospitals, satellite
images, air-lifting and air-dropping, scenes reminiscent of those seen only in
Hollywood blockbusters, now appeared in China's TV news reporting, showing in a
way the effectiveness of the country's national mobilization mechanism and also
the economic and social prowess it has gathered in the past 30 years.
Meanwhile, the Chinese people also saw on TV that
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen braved aftershocks to direct relief work and
console victims in the quake areas; military troops scrambled to rescue lives in
the debris at any cost.
"Saving lives is the top priority," that's what the
government said and most importantly, what it did.
Many Chinese, including quake survivors, said they
were "proud of the government" when speaking to foreign and domestic reporters.
Sharing the public sentiment, a young man surnamed
Yuan from Ya'an, one of the worst-hit cities, said he was "moved by and proud
of" his city government, which not only tried hard to rescuelocals, but managed
to help other quake areas without any sign of red tape and local protectionism
which used to be common.
After the quake, the Chinese government fulfilled
with actions its pledge of "putting people first," something it had advocated so
hard, and beefed up the governing ideology of openness and transparency.
Officials saw this time the surging of a civil society, found the norm of their
actions and the value of their very existence.
The general public also found the traditional values
shine again, such as courage, resolution, reason and sympathy, which had once
paled in people's mind when they were in pursuit of economic benefits.
China's spoiled younger generation, called the
"post-1980s," grew up almost overnight after the quake, becoming a major force
of the volunteers in the rescue and relief work.
A young man in Chengdu wrote to a magazine: "Before
this incident, I had no confidence in humanity at all. Now, I found they are
still there, and very strong in everybody's mind. The Chinese nation has a
strong cohesive power."
LAW TESTIFIED BY
HISTORY
President Hu may be a
mild-speaking person in many people's eyes, but he was seen on TV yelling out to
a group of relief soldiers that "No hardship will daunt the heroic Chinese
people!" Premier Wen also wrote on a blackboard in a quake-hit school that
"Trials and tribulations only serve to revitalize a great nation."
Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in
Shifang City, Sichuan Province, Sunday morning to oversee rescue
operations. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao talks to
students at a temporary classroom of Beichuan Middle School in Mianyang
City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 23, 2008. Wen Jiabao went to
the temporary schoolhouse of Beichuan Middle School and the makeshift tent
school established at Jiuzhou Stadium in Mianyang on Friday to visit
teachers and students who survived the May 12 earthquake. (Xinhua
Photo) Photo
Gallery>>>
They are not merely words of encouragement, but also
a law testified by history time and again.
Starting from the Opium War in 1840, China's modern
history was virtually one of foreign invasions and famine. The Chinese,
including rival warlords, consolidated their ground and drove invaders away in
the end.
After New China was founded in 1949, the Chinese
people, who had undergone a century of humiliation, cherished their independence
and territorial integrity so much that they were always ready to safeguard them
at any cost, including giving their lives.
Some 20 years later, havoc was again wreaked on their
lives by a human disaster, the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which
brought their country onto the verge of a breakdown. But it was also the
retrogress and chaos that prompted the Chinese to work harder in the next three
decades to build their nation into the world's fourth largest economy.
The rise of a great nation has never been smooth.
However, the gains and losses from every disaster it experienced and every
mistake it made, will all be cauterized into the nation's historic memory and to
nourish it into further growth.
The Sichuan earthquake, this time, given its great
loss and vast social impact, will not only serve as a turning point on how the
Chinese will build their infrastructure, but also on how they see themselves and
how to run the country.
TANGJIASHAN, Sichuan, May 29 (Xinhua) -- More than
600 rescuers worked through heavy rain on Thursday to dig a diversion channel on
one of the most dangerous lakes in China's quake-hit Sichuan Province.
Soldiers and water resources professionals worked
non-stop around the Tangjiashan "quake lake" despite heavy downpours that
started about 10 p.m. on Wednesday. Full story
BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of
Finance said on Thursday it had earmarked another 1 billion yuan (about 144
million U.S. dollars) to finance plans and measures to deal with the swelling
lakes formed by the May 12 earthquake.
The money will be used to repair those
severely-damaged small reservoirs in quake-hit regions, the ministry said in a
statement. Full story
BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities
published a special statute Thursday that provides for punishment of malpractice
and fraud involving relief for the May 12 earthquake in southwest China.
The quake took at least 68,516 lives, injured 365,399
people, left another 19,350 missing and rendered more than 15 million people
homeless. Full story
