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On
Monday, May 12, 2008 at 2:28:01 PM local time, an earthquake with a
magnitude of 7.9/8.0 hit just 90km northwest of the provincial capital
of Chengdu. As of May 14, the official Xinhua news agency reported:
14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried
in the debris and 64,746 had been injured. On May 31, the death toll
was updated to 68,467 in Sichuan with a further ~17,000 people missing,
and 354,045 injured (source: Wikipedia).
Sichuan
is famous for it's teahouses and the Panda Bear ...and notorious for
its part in the Three Gorges Dam project. It borders Tibet and has a
sizeable population of ethnic Tibetans. Chengdu has a general population
of over 10 million but, as a Chinese student at my university said to
me; "Who in Australia has even heard of it"?
On May 29, 2008,
government officials began inspecting the ruins of thousands of schools
that collapsed, searching for clues about why they crumbled. Thousands
of parents around the province have accused local officials and builders
of cutting corners in school construction, pointing out that after the
quake other nearby buildings were little damaged. In the aftermath of
the quake, many local governments promised to formally investigate the
school collapses, but as of July 17, across Sichuan, parents of children
lost in collapsed schools complain they have yet to receive any reports.
Local officials urged them not to protest but the parents demonstrated
and demanded an investigation. Furthermore, censors have discouraged
stories of poorly-built schools from being published in the media and
there has been an incident where police drove away the protestors.
In the China Digital Times, an article reports of a close analysis
by a Chinese construction engineer who stated:
" School construction is the worst. First, there's not enough capital.
Schools in poor areas have small budgets and, unlike schools in the
cities, they can't collect huge fees, so they're pressed for money.
With construction, add in exploitation by government officials, education
officials, school managers, etc. and you can imagine what's left over
for the actual building of schools. When earthquake prevention standards
are raised, government departments, major businesses, etc. will all
appraise and reinforce their buildings. But these schools with their
70's-era buildings, no one pays attention to them. Because of this,
the older school buildings are suffering from inadequate protection
while the new buildings have been shoddily constructed.
In South China Morning Post was a Reuters/China picture of
a young victim of the earthquake, with one of her legs missing.
Two days after the Paralympics opening ceremony, photos of the ballerina
from her wheelchair were still published in Chinese newspapers and web
sites alongside older pictures of Li. She is seen waiting for help in
the ruins among the dead bodies of her schoolmates and there are pictures
of her lying in a blood-stained hospital bed after her left leg was
amputated to save her life.
The Chinese nation were seized again with painful memories of the devastating
May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people in the southwestern
Sichuan Province
As Li danced gracefully from her wheelchair, among a group of ballerinas
with hearing impairments, the Chinese audience was reminded of the May
12th quake. Wiping away tears, the audience gave Li a warm applause.
Li began learning ballet two years ago. Nearly four months after her
life was saved, Li's dream for the stage was kept alive. "I can't
imagine it," said the girl's mother, Li Jiaxiu. "She danced
to instant fame."
Her mother accompanied Li to a Beijing hospital for treatment and for
weeks of secret ballet training and rehearsals with Zhang Jigang, artistic
director of the Beijing Paralympics opening ceremony. "She certainly
did her best. She was so tired at the end of the performance that she
fell asleep on our way back to the hospital."
All Li remembered about the 8.0-magnitude quake that shattered her home
county of Beichuan, was how she woke up from a coma in the dark and
could not move. She exchanged a few words of encouragement with two
classmates on her side, saying they would all get out alive. But soon
enough, her friends became silent and never answered her again. To help
her get through the 70 hours of pain, hunger and despair, the sixth-grader
recalled her teacher's comment that "the slim and graceful girl
was born to be a ballerina." Li would eventually become one of
only seven children to survive the rubble of Qushan Primary School.
"The corpses of my classmates stank... I carried on because I imagined
I was dancing all the time," she later told her sister at hospital.
"Am I brave?" she said in a whisper to rescuers who found
her two days after the quake. Policemen burst into tears because without
proper equipment to free her left leg from under the weight of the ruins,
they could not pull her out immediately. Rescuers eventually decided
she had to sacrifice a leg for her life, and amputated it.
The first two months after the quake were a nightmare. Li Yue fought
constantly with pains from her injuries and her shattered dream of being
a dancer. In June, director Zhang Jigang sent someone to visit Li at
her hospital in Xi'an, and invited her to perform at the opening gala.
She cried with excitement.
Li arrived in Beijing with her mother towards the end of June. Her role
at the Paralympics was kept secret for at least six weeks. Li had to
get up at 6 a.m. for treatment in order to sneak out of the hospital
in southern Beijing. Later in the day, she had to travel two hours north
in order to get ballet training at the Tibetan School.
On her busiest days, the girl had to skip lunch, train long hours and
go to bed after midnight. She lost two kilos in a month.
Hard work finally paid off when Li got to dance for her dead classmates,
for all the quake-affected people in Sichuan Province and for all the
handicapped people.
"Now at last, her own dream has come true. I hope this is also
the end of her quake misery," said her mother Li Jiaxiu.
Li Yue said she would never give up her dream. "With just one leg
I probably won't be able to dance again. I might take up choreography
or learn a musical instrument instead." Li is just one of an estimated
83 million handicapped people in China who need extra care in order
live independently. With the disabled in the spotlight, the Beijing
Paralympics is undoubtedly was an opportunity for the Chinese capital
to build more handicapped-accessible facilities. It was also a chance
to extend extra care to the disabled which make up 6.34 percent of the
population.
The famed Beijing roast duck restaurant chain Quanjude has begun offering
menus in Braille and all waiters have learned sign language to better
serve impaired customers. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has financed
more than 6,000 schools and special training centers for disabled people
along with nearly 20,000 rehabilitation centers, said Lu Shiming, vice
president of China Disabled Persons Federation. "Instead of just
providing relief, we are now providing the handicapped people with rehabilitation
services, training, jobs and insurance to help them feel respected and
able to live as healthy people," he said.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced during
the Games that all China's 83 million handicapped people were covered
by the social security network, and about 20 million of them had jobs.
Source: Xinhua Newsagency.
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