China's Big Earthquake - Three Years Later

The China Teaching Web ^ | 8-23-2011 | Robert Vance

[robertvance]

"It's all new", said the shirtless man who shared a small quadrant of shade with me behind our bus. He was pointing with his cigarette at a series of white three story buildings directly in front of us.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon and a sweltering sun beat down unmercifully upon our vulnerable position on the side of the road. This was the third time that our bus had broken down in just a few hours and I was starting to wonder if I would make it back to Chengdu that day.

"What was it like before?" I asked as I gazed a few hundred meters down the road at the outskirts of Wenchuan.

"It was different", was the reply. "You should have seen it. Very different."

In 2008, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook the city of Wenchuan into ruined pieces and ravaged over 3000 kilometers of the surrounding area. It is estimated that around 70,000 people perished although the true number will never be known. More than three years later, there are many signs, or 'earthquake relics' as they are called locally, that remain of this epic disaster; collapsed houses and bridges, massive landslides, and humongous boulders are still clearly visible throughout the area.