Powerful Aftershock
There was just a 6.1 magnitude aftershock! Definitely the most powerful in a long time - everything was shaking for 30 seconds. This aftershock was more powerful than the recent earthquake in Los Angeles!
Motorcycle Rescue Mission
Two days ago I returned to the mountain where I had been trapped after the earthquake to retrieve my motorcycle. I went with Carl and his friend Chris, riding in the sidecar of a vintage WW2 style bike. The mission was a success and we came down with 5 bikes, three more than we had come up the mountain with. Carl took great photos and wrote a more detailed writeup which is available on his forum but he also uploaded a video to youtube. Check it out:
Government Warning Incites Panic: Escaping Chengdu.
A week after the earthquake had passed there were still frequent aftershocks which rattled buildings and nerves. On the tip of everyones tongue was talk about "the big one": the aftershock that would rival the strength of the original 8.0 magnitude quake on the 12th. While the big one hasn't come, the government has been accurate so far in its prediction of significant aftershocks. Evidently seismologists can predict aftershocks with reasonably accuracy, although the USGS chooses not to publish their own.
Recently the world has been applauding the Chinese media for its transparency in reporting the disaster as it develops. Instead of reporting that everything is fine as they did in Tangshan in 1976 (which in terms of death toll was the deadliest earthquake in 300+ years) they've given domestic and foreign journalists access to disaster sites and have responsibly reported the reality of the situation in every form of media available. One method they've been employing has been the SMS service of China Mobile and China Telecom, the two largest mobile phone networks in mainland China. They send daily updates with relevant information, addressing whatever the concerns of the moment are. As rumors of exposed radioactive material explode, an SMS is message is sent to 50 million people, informing them that the material is safe and the situation is under control. The next day the rumor was a dam breaking. SMS quickly arrives to dispel that rumor; "engineers are relieving pressure and downstream areas are safe". The next day it's a chemical plant that's spilled 80 tons of ammonia into the water supply. SMS is right on top of it. They've done an incredible job maintaining order by providing the information which people in these times are so desperate for - and believe me, millions of people have been waiting anxiously for these official bulletins which are deployed through the ubiquitous cellular network.
On Tuesday evening I was at home with a few friends, drinking and playing guitar. Around 10pm I get a text message from a friend warning me of an extremely powerful aftershock tonight, possible a 7.0. I dismiss the threat as I had been getting messages exactly like this all week. A few minutes later some more messages arrive with same warning, from both foreign and Chinese friends. Within 15 minutes I had gotten 20 text messages from friends and acquaintances - clearly this rumor was moving quickly. I waited for the official word from the government, but when it came it wasn't what I expected. Instead of dispelling the rumor it confirmed it: there would be a massive aftershock within the next 48 hours. Supporting information or instructions were noticeably absent. Shortly after putting my phone down, before I could report the news to those next to me, the earth 7 stories below me rumbled and the building swayed. Time to leave.
We put on our shoes and planned to go to Saschas house in San Sheng Xiang, a rural community 25 minutes outside Chengdu. Secluded from the panic of the city, slightly farther from the fault line, and sleeping in a small 2-bedroom house. Stepping into the street the air is warm, the sky is dark, and the street is filled with a bustle of people and tents. A lot of the tents are makeshift shelters, hastily constructed pipe frames covered by sheets of red white and blue striped plastic. Everyone had gotten the warning and had left all of the buildings. The roads were filled with cars in total gridlock, stationary but with horns intermittently blaring. I hadn't ever seen the street this full of people in such a state of noisy inactivity. Here's a video:
It didn't seem too likely that we'd find a taxi since there were almost none on the road - they'd all returned home to pick up their families. After a long search we found one and arrived at San Sheng Xiang to find Tenzin and Aliyah sitting around a table outside with a bottle of bourbon. We played cards and told them about what it was like escaping Chengdu and the panicked state of the city. We decided to sleep inside the house except for Tenzin and Aliyah who dragged a mattress outside and draped a mosquito net over a frame, completing their driveway shelter. Our rural campout ended a day later when the large aftershock never came and we slowly returned back to our homes in Chengdu. Walking on the empty road back to the city surrounded by sunshine, green fields, and chirping birds we voiced our agreement that this episode concluding with an anti climax was a pleasant surprise.
Here's a photo of Jiao Jiao holding our bags as we sat on the street waiting for a taxi we could coerce into stopping:
Sichuan Quake Relief
A coalition in Chengdu has created an organization to provide aid and support to affected areas of the May 12th earthquake. This is the organization that will get the money raised by the Heart of the City event this Saturday. So far they've raised nearly 200,000rmb. Respect to them and everyone else making a contribution in this disaster. Check out their website:
edit: listed on the donors page.
One Week Later: Grief, Patriotism
After the three minute memorial had completed we found ourselves several city blocks from the epicenter of Chengdu heading toward Tianfu Square. Upon arrival we see that the square, overlooked by a watchful Mao Ze Dong statue, is filled with a crowd of thousands. Everyone seems to be milling around, but as we approach the center of the square I can hear a loud rumbling sound. As I turn on the camera and move closer the sound reveals itself as a crowd of 5,000 pumping fists in the air and cheering "Go China!" (加油中国!).
I had never seen patriotism this strongly in my face before, neither in the West nor the East. China has a strong tendency to rally behind social and political strife as the Tibetan protests from earlier this year have demonstrated, but this was on a scale I hadn't witnessed before. The emotion in the crowd was overwhelming and ranged from enthusiastic shrieks of national pride from young men to teary eyed children rhythmically hoisting flowers toward the sky, but everyone was united in a public declaration of grief and patriotism. As I've said before, no matter which direction China chooses to go, they go together as one. It's a dramatic difference that China has with it's rival America - a partisan country of fractured social and political composition.
Watch the video of the crowd:
One Week Later: Solidarity
A week after the earthquake on the 12th, China recognized the beginning of a 3-day period of mourning beginning with three minutes of silence at 2:28pm. I had heard conflicting rumors about what would actually happen - one source said there would be silence, another said that everyone across the country would simultaneously be honking car, boat, and train horns while sounding ambulance and police sirens. My plan was to go to the center of Chengdu, Tianfu Square, to witness whatever would happen. Leaving my house at 1:45 we nearly made it, but not quite.
As soon as we hail a taxi headed for the city center, it's clear that this won't be a short trip. The roads are gridlocked but for no apparent reason - up until now I haven't seen the streets anything but empty; with schools and businesses closed, much of the city had already fled for safer ground. We're stuck in a taxi on a hot day surrounded by hundreds of stationary cars.
As we sit on the main North-South artery of Chengdu, the clock approaches 2:28 and people start honking. One person honks and another honks in response, and two more in response to the second. After 5 seconds of this it's clear that it has begun - everyone is parked in the street, honking simultaneously and the sound and sight of this is surreal and stunning. We exit the car and take a look around. Watch the video I took:
The feeling for those three minutes was very tense. Part of me felt that by filming it I was distracted and slightly detached from the holy moment, as it were. No one spoke and most people didn't move. Buses were filled with passengers who stood up for free minutes on the bus, quietly looking in front of them. Taxi drivers stood outside their cars, reaching an arm in through the window to sound the horn. A few people quietly rode bicycles through the motionless crowds on the street, others stopped and stood.
During those three minutes part of me was on Ren Min Nan Lu - another was envisioning the incomprehensible terror of thousands of buildings falling without warning, innocent children being effortlessly crushed and pinned under debris, and tourists on the same mountain as I being entombed by landslides and swallowed by merging mountains. I felt incredible grief.
The Road to Recovery
Recovery efforts have been underway for 6 days now.
Since the original 7.9 magnitude earthquake there have been over 5,000 small tremors and about 100 significant aftershocks. The city of Chengdu, 100km to the South East of the epicenter, struggles to return to normal while each successive aftershock tests what appears to be its last nerve. In spite of this, the uniformly generous and selfless nature of the population of China is as overwhelming as the sheer destructive power of this disaster.
It's been almost 36 hours since I've felt a significant aftershock and just before the last one came, moments ago, my girlfriend had said how quiet it's been here. I barely had time to voice my agreement when the room started shaking and glasses on the table started chattering. It lasted about 20 seconds and was the strongest aftershock I've felt since 1am yesterday morning, which registered a 6.0 on the richter scale. Here in Chengdu these aftershocks are merely discomforting, but having been in areas closer to the epicenter I know that the power of these aftershocks is exponentially more fierce and dangerous in areas which are in the greatest need of help.
Yesterday I returned to Qing Cheng Mountain, which I was trapped on for 24 hours during the earthquake. Some of the roads were repaired and it was a much easier trip up the mountain this time than it was coming down the day after the earthquake. The weather was clear, the rain had subsided, and the aftershocks were much less frequent. As it were, I didn't feel any aftershocks at all until we'd arrived back to the original destination where everything had first happened. It was unnerving to be in the same place and again experience the frightening familiarity of the ground trembling beneath me. We didn't stick around for long - I took a few hundred photos and we began our descent. Along the way I took nearly 500 photos which are uploading as I write this. A picture is worth a thousand words and I believe these photos will do that phrase justice.
Here's a preview video which was filmed steps away from where I was when the earthquake occurred:
2:28pm this afternoon marks one week since this disaster and alarms will be sounded all across the country for three minutes, followed by three days of mourning. I'll go to Tianfu Square (the center of Chengdu, which sits in front of a towering statue of Mao) and take some photos and video at that time.
The Ace of Diamonds: Surviving the Sichuan earthquake on a Daoist Mountain
On the day of the earthquake in Sichuan Province, Charlie Moseley, Ramone and John Dkar met at the Shamrock Bar and Grill in Chengdu at 7am and left on motorbikes for a tour of Qing Cheng Mountain. Qing Cheng Mountain is one of the most famous Daoist sites in China, covered in temples, pagodas and teahouses. It is about an hour northwest of Chengdu, right outside of Dujiangyan, an area hit hard by the earthquake.
It was a beautiful day for a bike ride. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze. The ride up to Qing Cheng Mountain is lined with bamboo-covered hills and small brooks. Bed and breakfast inns line the road snaking up the mountain; temples and pagodas peek out from the cliffs on the way to the White Lotus Daoist Monastery perched atop the peak.
The three friends reached the top of the mountain just after noon and spent a couple hours taking pictures and touring the area. They decided to head back right around three o’clock. They paused for a moment on the way down, parking their bikes and stretching, when the earthquake hit.
“It was like an explosion. The houses started breaking apart all around us, the ground was shaking and glass was flying everywhere,” said Charlie.
They got on their bikes and tried to navigate down the rolling mountainside. Charlie was in front and was brought to a screeching halt when a landslide took out the road fifty feet in front of him. His friends stopped behind him, and they turned around and headed back up the mountain. They hadn’t gone five city blocks when they came to a house that had collapsed into the street, blocking the way up.
“It was surreal. We were trapped and all of the buildings around us were crumbling into dust. The white powder covered everyone’s face, people came out into the road screaming and crying. There were many injuries – broken limbs, head trauma. It looked like Ground Zero after 911.”
By now, massive boulders and chunks of the old Daoist mountain were tumbling down into the small gorge next to the road. They were far away from where the friends were trapped, but they could see and hear them.
“The mountain blew up right in front of us. There were tremors every few minutes. I will never forget the thunderous echo of those boulders – as big as two-story buildings – crashing down the mountain and into the gorge. We saw a small bridge that crossed the gorge and led to a small hotel with aan open field in front of it. We reluctantly crossed it and our way to the wide grassy area in front of the hotel.”
The earthquake subsided after five or so large tremors and the friends were safe on the far side of the river in the open field. People wandered around in a daze, silent and staring up at the mountain.
“We used wreckage, plastic sheets and bamboo poles to build a small camp on the field and people started wandering over. In every building people had died. There were infants and old people; people trapped in the rubble. Everyone formed groups and tried to enter the buildings to rescue their friends and family, but it was still too dangerous. The tremors still shook the area, boulders fell from the mountain and buildings were still crumbling.”
Charlie took a headcount of all the people – 105 – and collected supplies. They found 300kg of rice, propane gas and some umbrellas. The camp was in a precarious position. The tremors kept coming, the mountain was falling apart and the sun was going down. As night fell, Ramone, Charlie and John huddled up with the locals and tried to get some sleep.
“It started raining hard when night fell and it was impossible to stay dry. We could hear the boulders falling and felt every tremor. I learned to distinguish the boulders by their sound: the little ones sounded like rushing water and the big ones like thunder and explosions. The tremors always began small and rapid, then grew violent before subsiding again.”
The long night lying on the wet ground, listening to the mountain fall apart around them and sensing every tremor was as terrifying as the initial explosive earthquake. The water pooled around their bodies and they barely slept, waiting for the tremor that would kill them all.
They planned to leave at sunrise, but as dawn fell across the small gorge they were trapped in, the whole group stood and simply waited for something to happen. Then a tremor hit and a giant piece of the mountain came crashing into the gorge. Everybody panicked and began yelling to each other to make a run for it. The group rushed up the near side of the mountain, pulling themselves up through the mud and brush. The very old and the very young raced up and away from the mountain shattering across the gorge.
When they reached the top, they found a path that led to a teahouse with chairs and a wooden shelter. The group gathered under the shelter and started a fire, cooking up rice porridge for breakfast.
“All of a sudden, a leader emerged. A man stood up on one of the benches and started yelling at the crowd. I couldn’t understand much, because the dialect is very thick. But from what I could understand, he said: I know the way, I can lead you out, who is with me? The whole crowd yelled “Hao!” (Yes!) and we set out.”
The man led the group down a clear path, then veered back down toward the river. The mountainside was muddy and denuded of trees, so it was very slow going. They were closer to the area where the boulders were falling and the raging river was right below. Them. It was long, tense hour before they managed to get all of the people across the muddy mountain and down to the road. The road was almost completely destroyed. Pieces had fallen into the river, boulders and landslides blocked the path. The group picked up pace and headed down the mountain.
“He led us through the damaged road, past total devastation. The small town on the shoulder of the mountain completely destroyed. I restaurant I had eaten lunch at thirty minutes before the quake it was gone, complete wreckage. Temples were destroyed, pagodas knocked over. It was like an abandoned war-zone with buildings half-exposed, but almost no other people. The whole town was flipped upside down.”
The followed the road down, often reaching parts virtually wiped out, leaving only one small path for the group to follow. When the group reached the ticketing office of the Qing Cheng Mountain Tourism Area, they joined about 500 people waiting in line. Local and military police organized everybody into two lines and guided them down the mountain. The roads and all paths were demolished. Everyone had to hang onto branches and bamboo and climb down a precarious, muddy path. Ramone and Charlie carried an old woman with head trauma along a path that hugged the cliff. She was in heels and ankle deep in mud. It was still raining and the tremors kept up throughout the day.
The road resumed farther down the path. Police and motorcycles started appearing on the road and the survivors stumbled past another destroyed village. When they reached the foot of the mountain, hundreds of people were milling about with their belongings in plastic bags, looking for transportation out of Qing Cheng Mountain. This is where the three friends split from the group.
“We found a car, but he did not have enough gas to get back to Chengdu and nobody was selling any gas, so we decided to go to Dujiangyan. We had no clue about the earthquake – where it was centered, how the rest o
f Sichuan had been affect or anything. We were shocked when we reached Dujiangyan. The city was in total chaos. Hundreds of thousands of people crowded the streets and military units were marching in formation carrying shovels – they were on the scene very quickly. Military and police vehicles flashed their lights and every open space in the city was covered in a tent. The buildings were not all totally demolished, but every building had sustained extensive damage. The bus station was closed and there were people everywhere with bags waiting to leave.”
They found a car back to Chengdu and listened to the radio on the hour-long drive back, learning of the extent of the damage done by the earthquake.
A few hours later, Charlie sits in the Sultan Restaurant in south Chengdu and shakes his head at the experience. He pulls out an ace of diamonds and shows it to me.
“This helped me get through, man. It was the only happiness I felt during that night. It was cold and wet and terrifying, but when I found that pack of cards I just felt a surge of happiness. I told everybody: Hey look, a deck of cards, we can really use this.”
He shakes his head and laughs.